“I should think it’s obvious that it’s a child,” says Mr. Vanders.
“Are there many children here?”
“It’s a large staff,” he responds. “Most people in life have children.”
“I saw a little girl digging in the garden yesterday,” says Jane.
Mr. Vanders freezes. Astonishment lights his face, then vanishes so quickly that Jane wonders if she imagined it. What could possibly be so significant about a little girl digging in the garden?
Pointing his pen at the exit, he practically commands, “Talk to Mrs. Vanders!”
“Well, geez. I hope she’s a better conversationalist than everyone else in this house,” Jane mutters as she turns away, amazed with the way some of the people she’s encountered here—Mr. Vanders, Ravi, Phoebe, Colin—provoke her most sardonic but also her most honest self. Jane may not be comfortable in this house, but she wonders if maybe this house makes her comfortable in herself. She feels almost as if she’s meeting herself again after a long absence. Aunt Magnolia?
“By the way,” Jane says louder as she reaches the door, “I’m the sultan of subtle.”
“I don’t think there’s a sultan of subtle,” Patrick remarks absently behind her. “It’s more an office for ministers and spies.”
* * *
In the receiving hall, a team of women drag lilac branches around, cutting and arranging them in pots. Jane climbs the steps quickly, trying to reach an altitude where the scent is less overwhelming. Every spring her campus town is choked with the smell of lilacs. It’s impossible to separate that smell from Aunt Magnolia.
She stops on the second level, noticing that someone’s given the suits of armor big bouquets of daffodils to hold in their arms. Jasper is on the opposite landing again. He stands in front of that tall painting of the room with the umbrella, watching Jane, whimpering. Thinking to give him a scratch, she moves onto the bridge above the receiving hall, but then the sound of a camera shutter echoes somewhere above.
Jane knows who it is. Leaning out, she cranes her neck to find Ivy on the bridge above. Her stomach is propped against the railing and she seems to be photographing the receiving hall.
For a split second, Jane considers pretending not to see her. If she doesn’t talk to Ivy, she won’t have to think about whether Ivy’s mixed up in something bad.
Then Ivy lowers her camera and sees Jane. She leans over the railing, smiling. “Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” says Jane cautiously. “What are you doing?”
“Taking pictures.”
“Of what?”
“Wait there,” Ivy says, then straightens and walks out of Jane’s sight.
A moment later, she steps onto Jane’s bridge. She’s wearing a ratty blue sweater and black leggings and she smells like chlorine again, or maybe like the sea. She looks like the sea. Beautiful, and unconcerned, and full of secrets.
“What are you up to?” she asks Jane.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Vanders,” Jane answers. “Why are you taking pictures of the receiving hall?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I’m photographing the art,” Ivy says, then opens her mouth to say more, then closes it, looking carefully casual, and Jane knows, immediately, through some instinct that touches the skin of her throat, that whatever’s going on, Ivy is involved.
“Ivy?” she says, with a sinking heart. “What is it?”
“What’s what?” says Ivy. “Look.” She shows the camera to Jane, scrolling through the last dozen or so shots. Every picture contains one or another piece of art in the house, though much of the art is obscured by members of the gala cleaning staff. Jane sees the women arranging lilacs, and the bucket-carrying man who walked through breakfast this morning. Several of the pictures feature this man, the art fading into the background.
“It must be hard to focus on the art when the house is so full of people,” Jane says, fishing again.
“Yeah.”
“Why are you taking pictures of the art?”
“For Mrs. Vanders,” Ivy says in that fake, nonchalant voice. “To help her catalog it.”
“Ivy?” says Jane, dying to ask her if she’s really taking pictures of the art, or if she might, for some reason, be taking pictures of the people.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing,” says Jane, biting back frustration. “It just seems to me like some of the people in this house are acting weird.”
“Really? Like who?”
Like you, with that fake innocent voice, Jane wants to reply. She wonders, what if she told Ivy about seeing Patrick and the Okadas? “Mrs. Vanders, for one,” she says. “She keeps giving me weird looks.”
“She does that to everyone,” says Ivy.
“Right,” says Jane with a touch of sarcasm she can’t hide. “I’m sure everything’s completely normal.”
Now Ivy’s studying Jane with wide-eyed surprise. “Janie?” she says. “Did something happen?”
“Morning, you two,” says a voice behind Jane.
Kiran’s on the landing, about to descend the steps to the receiving hall. “Sorry, Janie,” she says. “Did you get breakfast?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, hon,” Kiran says, flashing a quick smile at Ivy. “How are you this morning?”
“Good,” says Ivy distractedly, still watching Jane with puzzlement. “Patrick’s back. He’s probably looking for you.”
“Mm?” says Kiran, inflecting the monosyllable with disinterest. She starts down the steps. Just as her feet touch the hall’s checkerboard floor, Ravi appears at the very top of the stairs.
One after another, the servants in the receiving hall turn to look up at him, then smile. He’s showered, shaved, barefoot, and dressed in black, and up there on his stage, with those white streaks in his hair that make him look older than he is, sophisticated. He’s hard not to smile at. Kiran cranes her neck to him, her face suffused with light. When he sees her, he starts down the steps, singing her name, skipping, rushing. Reaching her, he enfolds her in a hug that makes Jane wish she had a twin brother.
Then Ravi’s eyes take in the entire hall, find Jane and Ivy standing on the bridge.
“I like your friend,” he says to Kiran, loudly enough for Jane to hear.
“Behave yourself, Ravi,” Kiran chides him.
“Hey, Ivy-bean,” Ravi calls up to Ivy, flashing her a grin.
“Hey, Ravi,” Ivy calls down, her smile big and real. She adds, in a tone of mischief, “How’s your girlfriend?”
“Perfectly aware that I’m a sexual magnet,” he says.
Ivy snorts. “Just don’t forget about my powers.” She adds sideways to Jane, “Ravi and I have a joke that I’m a witch.”
“I thought you only used your powers for good,” says Ravi.
“Good is such an enigmatic word,” says Ivy.
“Oh my god!” Ravi says. “Someone’s corrupted you! Hide the grimoires!”
“Let’s take a vote of the house and see who people think is more corruptible, me or you.”
“Oh, hell,” Ravi says. “You know, just because the majority believes it doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“Majority? Pah. It’s going to be unanimous.”
“That doesn’t make it true, either.”
“Listen, all I’m saying is, Lucy seems like a nice lady. So don’t forget about my powers.”
“Got it. When my testicles dry up and drop off, I’ll know who—”
“Oh, god,” Kiran interrupts. “Please don’t make me picture your testicles, Ravi.”
“Come see Mum,” says Ravi to Kiran.
“Oh god! You switch from your testicles to our mother?”
“She’s the other woman most likely to threaten my testicles,” says Ravi. “Come have breakfast, then come visit Mum with me.”
“I’m n
ot in the mood for her various realities,” says Kiran. “She makes my head spin.”
“You can’t avoid her forever,” says Ravi. “or Dad either. From the sound of things, you’re avoiding him too.”
“Well,” says Kiran sweetly. “Then you should consider yourself flattered that I’m not avoiding you.”
“I was born irresistible,” says Ravi. “I can’t take credit for it.” Then his eyes slide to a place under the bridge Jane and Ivy are standing on. His face grows quiet. “Hey, man,” he says to someone Jane can’t see. He kisses his sister on the cheek, then passes through one of the doors that lead, among other places, to the banquet hall.
The person Ravi has greeted has fine shoulders Jane recognizes from above. As Patrick walks into the receiving hall toward Kiran, his broad, T-shirted back is to Jane, so she can’t see his expression, but she can see Kiran’s. It’s one with which Jane is becoming well-acquainted: a measured hardness. Kiran’s wall. And she’s right to protect herself, Jane thinks. Patrick lies.
Patrick stops before Kiran. “Hey,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Kiran says, then flicks her eyes toward Jane and Ivy as a signal to Patrick. Patrick glances over his shoulder and sees them on the bridge.
Jane studiously pretends to look elsewhere for a moment, then, as soon as Patrick looks away, returns to watching them.
“So,” Patrick says, turning back to Kiran. “On your way to breakfast?”
“Yes,” says Kiran.
“Say hi to your fancy boyfriend for me,” he says.
“Patrick,” Kiran says. “Stop it.”
“Imagine if I could say that to you,” Patrick says, “and you did what I asked. ‘Kiran, stop it.’”
“I’m not having this conversation here.”
“All right,” Patrick says sharply, then spins around and strides away into the east wing.
Kiran looks after him, fists closed hard. Her brittle mask is slipping. Suddenly she bursts across the checkerboard floor after him, her heels slapping on marble, like gunshots. She passes out of sight.
Jasper, still on the second-story landing, starts hopping and yipping in front of that tall painting. It’s like he’s channeling a rabid kangaroo.
“What is going on in this weirdo house?” Jane ask Ivy.
“Why, whatever do you mean?” says Ivy. Her tone is tongue-in-cheek.
“Do Kiran and Patrick have some sort of history?” says Jane.
“Sort of,” Ivy says. “I mean, they love each other. But it’s messy. At the moment, I’d say they have fundamental incompatibilities.”
“You mean, like, that Kiran has a boyfriend?”
“No,” says Ivy, her voice inflected with a kind of certainty. “I think the issues are mainly on Patrick’s side.”
“You mean because he sneaks around and lies,” says Jane.
Ivy’s alarm is physical, her body tensing and her eyes rushing to Jane’s. Then she starts talking, filling the silence, as if to keep Jane from saying anything else. “I think Kiran’s with Colin because she’s trying to move on, actually. He’s kind to her—he looks out for her. Like, once, before Colin and Kiran started dating, Octavian was criticizing Kiran at dinner for being sad and mopey and unemployed. Colin looked right at him and told Octavian there was no shame in being sad or mopey or unemployed, if that’s what you happened to be. He said it in this completely reasonable voice that sort of made you feel like you’d be an asshole to argue. Octavian shoved his pipe in his mouth and left the table.”
“Huh,” says Jane, trying to focus on the conversation, rather than on her misery. “I take it most people don’t talk to Octavian like that?”
“Octavian can be hard on Kiran and Ravi,” says Ivy. “Colin found the way to put him in his place without actually being rude. Kiran’s never been able to do that for herself.”
“And what about Ravi and Lucy? How did they ever end up together?”
“They’ve sort of had a thing since they met, maybe two or three years ago,” says Ivy. “They’re really close, then they fight, then they’re close again. It’s hard to tell how serious it is.”
“He doesn’t seem like a guy who’s serious about anyone.”
“Oh, he always puts on that act.”
“Is it an act?”
“I guess I can’t be sure,” says Ivy. “But I don’t think he’d actually cheat. Ravi is pretty loyal.”
“Isn’t he young for her?”
“Yeah,” says Ivy. “He’s twenty-two, and emotionally he’s about twelve. She’s thirty.”
“Does Ravi like older women?”
“Ravi is attracted to everyone,” Ivy says, “panoptically.”
Jane doesn’t know that word. “Panoptically?”
“All-inclusively,” Ivy says with a grin.
Jane gets being attracted to different kinds of people. To men and women, to people of different shapes and sizes, looks, personalities; she gets not having one type. But there are certainly qualities she prefers. Like, for example, the knowledge of big words she doesn’t know; that’s an attractive quality. “Really, everyone?” Jane says. “Everyone alive?”
“Well. He’s not a pedophile. And he’s not into incest,” Ivy says. “And he knows I’d castrate him if he ever came near me. But he has this way of seeing what’s beautiful about everyone.”
“Is he even attracted to, like, Mrs. Vanders?”
“I’m hoping his feeling for her is more of a mother-son thing,” Ivy says with a chuckle. “Beyond that, I’m not going to think about it.”
“Well, what about your brother?”
Ivy purses her lips. “In the case of Patrick, we have to make a distinction between attraction and intention. I mean, Ravi has principles. He wouldn’t consider Patrick that way, not seriously. Not that it would ever happen anyway, because Patrick is straight. But regardless, Ravi wouldn’t go there, because Ravi thinks Kiran should be with Patrick.”
There’s a lot to file away here, and questions Jane wants to ask but can’t, quite, because they’re not really relevant. Like, is Ivy straight? And why is she so easy to talk to? Even when she keeps switching over, intentionally, to a different, insincere version of herself?
“Ivy?” Jane starts.
Then, when Ivy responds with an appreciative Hm?, she sighs and says, “Never mind.”
“Is that a jellyfish?” says Ivy. “Showing under your sleeve?”
“Yes,” Jane says, growing warm, and suddenly shy.
“Can I see it?”
Carefully, Jane rolls her sleeve up to her shoulder. The jellyfish’s long, detailed arms and tentacles, then its golden body, come into view, anchored on her skin.
“Holy shit,” says Ivy, in a voice of awe. She reaches out and traces the bottom of the bell with a finger. “That is gorgeous,” she says. “Did you design it?”
Why does Ivy’s admiration make Jane so sad about Ivy lying? “It’s based on a photo my aunt took,” she says. “My aunt Magnolia. She raised me. Then she died. Maybe you knew that? She was an underwater photographer. She used to teach me to breathe the way a jellyfish moves.” It’s a ridiculous mouthful, but Ivy is still touching Jane, and Jane needs her to know all of it, all the parts of it.
Ivy’s finger drops. She frowns.
“Ivy?” says Jane.
“Ivy-bean,” says a deep, scratchy voice. It’s Mrs. Vanders, taking big, hurried steps toward them. “Where’s Ravi?”
“I think he’s having breakfast,” says Ivy thickly, her eyes on her camera.
“I need him,” says Mrs. Vanders. “I need to position him in front of the Vermeer.”
“Why?” says Ivy. “Is something wrong with the Vermeer?”
“I just want him to stand in front of it,” says Mrs. Vanders, “and not notice anything wrong about it, so that I can sto
p worrying about the damn thing and apply myself to the million tasks surrounding a gala. Send him to me, but don’t tell him anything! You,” she says, narrowing eyes on Jane. “I have things to say to you.”
“I’ve been getting that impression,” Jane responds. “Can we talk now?”
“I’m busy,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Find me! And say nothing to anyone!” She spins around and heads back the way she came.
“Ivy?”
“Yeah?”
“Earlier, in the kitchen, Mr. Vanders said that he knew my aunt Magnolia.”
“Yeah?”
“Did you know my aunt Magnolia?”
Ivy opens her mouth to answer. Before she can say anything, Mrs. Vanders pops her head around the entrance to the bridge again and yells, “Ivy! No more dawdling! Find Ravi!”
Ivy takes hold of Jane’s arm right where the jellyfish tentacles reach to her elbow. She grips so hard that it hurts. “Talk to Mrs. Vanders,” she says. “Please?” Then she turns away and heads down the stairs, leaving Jane to rub her arm and nurse her resentment.
The moment Ivy disappears, Ravi enters the receiving hall. He’s carrying two pieces of toast in one hand and a bowl of fruit in the other.
Taking a bite of toast, he jogs up the western stairs and crosses onto Jane’s bridge.
“Breakfast too sedentary for you?” asks Jane wearily.
“I wanted to say hi to you again,” says Ravi.
“Ravi,” says Jane, ever so slightly turning a shoulder to him, “aren’t you with Lucy?”
“On and off,” he says. “Off at the moment.”
“Oh,” says Jane, confused that this information pleases her. “I’m sorry.”
“Well,” he says, “to answer your question, yes. Every meal in this house is too sedentary for me.”
“Then,” says Jane, “that means you’ll want to keep moving.”
Ravi chuckles, then surprises Jane by doing just what she suggests. He doesn’t even crowd her too much as he passes. “I’m sorry to say that another soul awaits me this morning,” he says as he walks away. “What about you, do you have any interest in the universe’s multiple realities? Or are you like my twin, opposed to cosmology?”