Winter Roses

“Just hurry up and get the paperwork through so you can send me my check. And don’t expect me to call you back until you’re ready to talk like an adult instead of a spoiled kid with a grudge!”

The receiver slammed down in her ear. She folded it back up with quiet resignation. Rachel would never believe that Jerry, her knight in shining armor, was nothing more than a sick little social climbing drug dealer with a felony record who was holding her hostage to substance abuse. Ivy had tried for the past year to make her older sibling listen, but she couldn’t. The two of them had never been close, but since Rachel got mixed up with Jerry, and hooked on meth, she didn’t seem capable of reason anymore. In the old days, even when Rachel was being difficult, she did seem to have some small affection for her sister. That all changed when she was a junior in high school. Something had happened, Ivy had never known what, that turned her against Ivy and made a real enemy of her. Alcohol and drug use hadn’t helped Rachel’s already abrasive personality. It had been an actual relief for Ivy when her sister left for New York just days after the odd blowup. But it seemed that she could cause trouble long-distance, whenever she liked.

Ivy went down the hall quickly to her next class, without any real enthusiasm. She didn’t want to spend her life working for someone else, but she certainly didn’t want to go to New York and end up as Rachel’s maid and cook, as she had been before her sister left Jacobsville. Letting Rachel have their inheritance would be the easier solution to the problem. Anything was better than having to live with Rachel again; even having to put up with Merrie York’s brother, Stuart, in order to have one true friend.

It was Friday, and when she left the campus for home, riding with her fellow boarder, Lita Dawson, who taught at the vocational college, she felt better. She’d passed her English test, she was certain of it. But typing was getting her down. She couldn’t manage more than fifty words a minute to save her life. One of the male students typing with both index fingers could do it faster than Ivy could.

They pulled up in front of the boardinghouse where they both lived. Ivy felt absolutely drained. She’d had to leave her father’s house because she couldn’t even afford to pay the light bill. Besides, Rachel had signed papers to put the house on the market the same day she’d signed the probate papers at a local lawyer’s office. Since Ivy wasn’t old enough, at almost nineteen, to handle the legal affairs, Rachel had charmed the new, young attorney handling the probate and convinced him that Ivy needed looking after, preferably in a boardinghouse. Then she’d flown back to New York, leaving Ivy to dip into a great-aunt’s small legacy and a part-time job as a bookkeeper at a garage on Monday and Thursday evenings to pay for her board and the small student fee that Texas residents paid at the state technical and vocational college. Rachel hadn’t even asked if Ivy had enough to live on.

Merrie had tried to get Stuart to help Ivy fight Rachel’s claim on the bulk of the estate, but Ivy almost had hysterics when she offered. She’d rather have lived in a cardboard box by the side of the road than have Stuart take over her life. She didn’t want to tell her best friend that her brother terrified her. Merrie would have asked why. There were secrets in Ivy’s past that she shared with no one.

“I’m going to see my father this weekend.” Lita, dark-haired and eyed, smiled at the younger woman. “How about you?”

Ivy smiled. “If Merrie remembers, we’ll probably go window-shopping.” She sighed, smiling lazily. “I might see something I can daydream about owning,” she chuckled.

“One day some nice man is going to come along and treat you the way you deserve to be treated,” Lita said kindly. “You wait and see.”

Ivy knew better, but she only smiled. She wasn’t anxious to offer any man control of her life. She was through living in fear.

She went in the side door, glancing over to see if Mrs. Brown was home. The landlady must be grocery shopping, she decided. It was a Friday ritual. Ivy got to eat with Mrs. Brown and Lita Dawson, the other tenant, on the weekends. She and Lita took turns cooking and cleaning up the kitchen, to help elderly Mrs. Brown manage the extra work. It was nice, not having to drive into town to get a sandwich. The pizza place delivered, but Ivy was sick of pizza. She liked her small boardinghouse, and Lita was nice, if a little older than Ivy. Lita was newly divorced and missing her ex-husband to a terrible degree. She fell back on her degree and taught computer technology at the vocational college, and let Ivy ride back and forth with her for help with the gas money.

She’d no sooner put down her purse than the cell phone rang.

“It’s the weekend!” came a jolly, laughing voice. It was Merrie York, her best friend from high school.

“I noticed,” Ivy chuckled. “How’d you do on your tests?”

“I’m sure I passed something, but I’m not sure what. My biology final is approaching and lab work is killing me. I can’t make the microscope work!”

“You’re training to be a nurse, not a lab assistant,” Ivy pointed out.

“Come up here and tell that to my biology professor,” Merrie dared her. “Never mind, I’ll graduate even if I have to take every course three times.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Come over and spend the weekend with me,” Merrie invited.

Ivy’s heart flipped over. “Thanks, but I have some things to do around here…”

“He’s in Oklahoma, settling a new group of cattle with a sale barn,” Merrie coaxed wryly.

Ivy hesitated. “Can you put that in writing and get it notarized?”

“He really likes you, deep inside.”

“He’s made an art of hiding his fondness for me,” Ivy shot back. “I love you, Merrie, but I don’t fancy being cannon fodder. It’s been a long week. Rachel and I had another argument today.”

“Long distance?”

“Exactly.”

“And over Sir Lancelot the drug lord.”

“You know me too well.”

Merrie laughed. “We’ve been friends since middle school,” she reminded Ivy.

“Yes, the debutante and the tomboy. What a pair we made.”

“You’re not quite the tomboy you used to be,” Merrie said.

“We conform when we have to. Why do you want me there this weekend?”

“For selfish reasons,” the other woman said mischievously. “I need a study partner and everybody else in my class has a social life.”

“I don’t want a social life,” Ivy said. “I want to make good grades and graduate and get a job that pays at least minimum wage.”

“Your folks left you a savings account and some stocks,” Merrie pointed out.

That was true, but Rachel had walked away with most of the money and all of the stocks.

“Your folks left you Stuart,” Ivy replied dryly.

“Don’t remind me!”

“Actually, I suppose it was the other way around, wasn’t it?” Ivy thought aloud. “Your folks left you to Stuart.”

“He’s a really great brother,” Merrie said gently. “And he likes most women…”

“He likes all women, except me,” Ivy countered. “I really couldn’t handle a weekend with Stuart right now. Not on top of being harassed by Rachel and final exams.”

“You’re a whiz at math,” her friend countered. “You hardly ever have to study.”

“Translation—I work math problems every day for four hours after class so that I can appear to be smart.”

Merrie laughed. “Come on over. Mrs. Rhodes is making homemade yeast rolls for supper, and we have all the pay per view channels. We can study and then watch that new adventure movie.”

Ivy was weakening. On weekends, it was mostly takeout at the boardinghouse. Ivy’s stomach rebelled at the thought of pizza or more sweet and sour chicken or tacos. “I could really use an edible meal that didn’t come in a box, I guess.”

“If I tell Mrs. Rhodes you’re coming, she’ll make you a cherry pie.”

“That does it. I’ll pack a nightgown and see you in thirty minutes, or as soon as I can get a cab.”

“I could come and get you.”

“No. Cabs are cheap in town. I’m not destitute,” she added proudly, although she practically was. The cab fare would have to come out of her snack money for the next week. She really did have to budget to the bone. But her pride wouldn’t let her accept Merrie’s offer.

“All right, Miss Independence. I’ll have Jack leave the gate open.”