“And stuff?” she repeats.
“She wouldn’t stop asking me questions about what we were doing.” The light changes, and we move again. “And then she was watching this romantic movie and started talking about how she doesn’t have a boyfriend and probably never will. She sounded really sad about it.”
“Oh, poor baby. I honestly never thought she cared about any of that.”
“She’s twenty, Mom. Most twenty-year-olds in this country have already had sex. She’s totally an adult—?her boobs are bigger than mine. I bet she’s way more interested in guys than we realize.”
“She never talks about boys in her class. I mean, she talks about them . . . names go by . . . but no one name more than any other. Oh, wait!” Mom raises a finger off the steering wheel. “Now that I’m thinking about it, she has mentioned an Ethan a few times. A lot of it is complaining—?she thought he had taken her pencil a couple of days ago—?but she’s definitely noticed him.”
“Getting annoyed at him could totally mean she likes him. Back in seventh grade, I thought I hated Brian Kessler. I used to come home and complain about what a jerk he was. And he was the first boy I ever went out with.”
“He was one of your boyfriends? I don’t even remember the name.”
“The relationship never got past the texting stage—?but that was considered going out in seventh grade. Anyway, I’ll ask Ivy about Ethan. She needs to start getting out of the house without me before I go to college. Otherwise—” I stop before I say what I’m thinking, which is that it would kill me to leave knowing that Ivy has no escape from Ron and Mom. I switch to, “A boyfriend would be amazing for her. She’d have someone to do things with and to talk to and to help her grow up a little. Plus she probably has all these physical feelings—?I mean, I know she does since she was asking me all those questions.”
Mom groans. “That’s what I’m terrified of—?Ivy and some boy exploring each other’s bodies, trying to figure it all out, letting nature take over. She could easily wind up pregnant, Chloe.”
“If we tell her exactly how people get pregnant and how to avoid it, I bet she’ll be careful. She sets the alarm clock every night and brushes her teeth for exactly three minutes—?she’s a total rule follower. If you explain about condoms, she’ll use them—?and also probably lecture to death any guy who tries to get away without one.”
Mom’s laugh ends in a sigh. “I’m sorry, Chloe, but even if I can get over my own fears, I honestly don’t see this ever happening. It’s just so hard for her to be social in any way, and then adding in romance . . .”
Shocker: Mom’s giving up before even trying. Which just makes me more determined. “I’ll figure something out. I’m going to make this my mission—?to get Ivy a boyfriend before I leave for college. You didn’t hear how sad she sounded last night. She’s so lonely. I’m going to make this happen for her, even if I have to help her along every step of the way.”
“Every step of the way?”
“Okay, not every step of the way,” I concede. “Some things they’ll have to figure out for themselves.”
“That’s what terrifies me.”
“Get over it,” I say.
Ivy’s hungry when we get home, so Mom makes her a grilled cheese sandwich with the American cheese and sliced white bread we just picked up at the market. Ivy likes her food bland and colorless.
I pull up a chair to sit opposite from her as she’s eating. Mom lurks nearby, listening but letting me do the talking.
I keep it casual. “Hey, Ives? I was just thinking?. . . Are there any boys you like to hang with at school?”
“I don’t know.” She examines the edges of a grilled cheese half and then bites into it. She chews and swallows. There are traces of gluey orange cheese at the corners of her mouth as she says, “They don’t talk that much to me.”
Yeah, well, that’s probably true: the class is specifically for kids on the autism spectrum. There’s probably not a lot of conversation for conversation’s sake.
Then she says, “Ethan likes to talk. Usually about movies. He’s obsessed with movies.”
“Ethan, huh?” I say with a meaningful glance in Mom’s direction.
“But he’s really annoying sometimes. He talks about movies even if no one cares. Diana always says to him, ‘Stop talking so much, no one cares,’ but he still talks about them. Diana says he’s boring.” She pronounces Diana the Spanish way, Dee-ah-na.
“Do you think he’s boring?”
“Sometimes.” She puts down the sandwich and reaches for her glass of milk. “If I’ve seen the movie, it’s okay.”
“Maybe you should ask Ethan if he wants to go see a movie sometime.”
“He sees movies all the time.”
“I meant with you.”
“With me?” She puts her glass down without drinking from it. “That would be weird.”
“Why? James and I go to movies together all the time.”
“That’s because he’s your boyfriend.”
“He wasn’t always. Things have to start somehow.”
“Things?”
“You know . . . Stuff between a girl and a guy.”
“Oh.” She thinks for a moment. “Did you and James see a movie before he was your boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” I say, even though it’s not entirely true. We hooked up at a party last spring and then hooked up again at another party and then we hung out together at each other’s houses a couple of times and then we just slipped into being boyfriend and girlfriend. Somewhere in there we probably saw a movie or two, but never just as friends.
“Huh,” Ivy says. “Ethan really likes movies. He’d probably like it if I invited him to one.”
“So do you want to?”
“I don’t know. I need to think about it.” She crams the rest of the sandwich into her mouth and excuses herself from the table.