Chasing River: A Novel

“I’m a disgrace to my heritage,” Ivy admits, twirling her chow mein noodles around her fork.

“Just don’t spill,” Ian mutters, eyeing her lithe body that’s wedged into the wing chair, one leg slung over the side. We both watched her douse the take-out with so much soy sauce that it pooled in the bottom of her bowl.

I’m not even hungry, but when Ivy said she was going to order Chinese, I numbly nodded. Now I simply shift the noodles around in their box. My eyes veering over to my phone. River has already left three texts and two voice messages.

“See anything ya like?” Ian asks me in that strange mock Dubliner’s accent, pointing his chopsticks toward the big binder of tattoo photographs. I’ve been flipping through it for hours, listening to Ivy’s needle buzz behind the walls.

“You did all of these?”

“It’s my portfolio. Proof of my level of skill.”

“He’s alright,” Ivy mumbles through a full mouth of food.

“Would you stop saying that to potential customers!” He throws an extra set of chopsticks at her, and they hit her boot.

“What’s wrong, afraid of a little competition?”

He simply shakes his head at his cousin.

“I think you’re very good,” I offer, turning to the next page, and the next.

“See?” Ian smirks.

“She doesn’t even know what to look for,” Ivy mutters.

I ignore the little jibe—she’s right, but there’s no need to be so condescending about it—and keep looking through Ian’s work. Until I come to a page with a black-and-red bird. It’s large, taking up the client’s entire bicep, the wings curling around on either side. And it’s too similar to River’s to be a coincidence. “Does this mean something?

Ian leans over. “That’s the phoenix. It’s represents the Irish Republican Army, back when they reestablished themselves after a series of riots in Northern Ireland, aimed at stopping the persecution of Catholics. If you visit Belfast, you’ll see the phoenix on the gates into the Catholic memorial. It’s quite something, really.”

So, it’s not an eagle. River has a tattoo that represents the IRA on his chest.

God, I’m so stupid.

Of course he’d never admit to being involved with something like that. But then, why would he have bothered telling me all that he did last night about his family? Why not just lie about that, too? I just can’t make sense of his motivation.

“What do you know about the IRA?” I ask casually.

“Oh, man. Here we go . . .” Ivy groans. “You’re asking a guy with a master’s degree in political science, who wrote his thesis on the politics in Ireland, what he knows about the IRA? We could be here all night.”

Ian rolls his eyes but smiles. “No we can’t, because I have places I have to be.” To me, he asks, “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. I guess, just . . . how dangerous are they?”

“The guys who call themselves IRA today? They’re pretty fanatical, and dangerous. The IRA today isn’t what it was a hundred years ago, or even forty years ago. Most Irish, including those who once actively supported the fight for independence, are living their lives quite happily now. They’ve accepted the way the country has been divided and don’t want any more violence. Sure, there are protest parades every July, up in Belfast, but even the Provisional IRA—that’s the organization who led much of the fight in Northern Ireland against the British and loyalist supporters; they’re the ones this phoenix represents—they just want peace.”

That coincides with what River said last night. So why has River also been to prison for his involvement with the IRA? He’s only twenty-four—I snuck a peek at his driver’s license this morning while he was using my bathroom; it only seemed fair, seeing as he’s been through my wallet, too. If he’s been to prison, it’s been in the last six or seven years. So it can’t be something as terrible as murder.

“The problem is this Real IRA that sprung up after the ceasefire. They’re a much smaller organization—only a few hundred people in size—but they wreak havoc. The funny thing is that, aside from their army council—they’re quite official in the way they’re set up—not many of these rank-and-file ‘soldiers’ even know about what the IRA of the past fought for. They have no idea what you mean when you say ‘sovereignty.’They just want to bloody fight.”

His words are making my stomach curl. River does seem to fight a lot. “So that bombing in St. Stephen’s Green . . .”

“Likely IRA, sending some sort of message. They’ve waged war with the city’s drug gangs. They say they’re fighting against the drugs and corruption in our country, but their methods are murder and extortion. In the end, it’s all about making money. They’re just another gang, hiding behind the fear and respect the name gives them.” Ian frowns. “Though I don’t quite understand that attack on the Green. Normally their messages are dead bodies or cutting off limbs, or blowing up places where there are actual people.”

“Mmmm . . . yummy,” Ivy mocks, her tone full of sarcasm as a forkful of noodles floats in front of her mouth.

“Right. Sorry.” Ian gets up. “Make sure you bring the leftovers home and take the rubbish with you when you leave, okay? I don’t want this place stinking of soy sauce in the morning.”

Ivy sucks back a noodle in response, waving at her cousin as he disappears out the door, hitting the switch to the outside lights on his way out. A moment later, the lock sounds.

“You just made his day. He loves to geek out over Irish politics. You should listen to him when the IRA shows up in the news. He goes on these major verbal rampages. Not sure how we’re related.”

I wonder, too. I really know nothing about her. And right now, I could use the distraction of Ivy’s entire life story, from birth until tonight.

“So, what exactly is your background anyway, Ivy? You said you were born in Spain?”

She nods through a mouthful. “Mom was born and raised in Barcelona. My dad is first-generation American, but his parents are both from just outside Shanghai. They moved to California before he was born. Ian’s mom and my dad are brother and sister.”

“That’s where you moved to Sisters from?”

“San Francisco.” She heaves a sigh, muttering, “I loved it there.” Pointing the remote control at the stereo, she flips through the channels so fast that I don’t know how her brain processes what’s playing. “But my parents decided we needed to get away.”

“Why?”

She shrugs.

I have a feeling she could say more, but I don’t push it because my phone chirps, instantly stealing my attention.

Amber. Please answer me. I’m worried.

I can practically hear his deep accented voice coming through, making my guilt flare. What if this is all a huge misunderstanding? It has to be. I know River. No, you don’t, stupid Amber. Just because you’ve slept with him doesn’t mean you know him. I sigh. I can’t ignore him anymore, fear or not. Hurt or not. Anger, or not.

I’m sorry, I can’t make it tonight.

I power my phone off and toss it aside so I don’t have to read his response.

Ivy’s gaze bores into the side of my head. “This is the first time you’ve ever been stood up, isn’t it?”

I showed up at The Fine Needle just after six. Ivy, just about to take a girl of maybe twenty back for her tattoo, said I stormed in like Freddy Krueger was chasing after me.

I forced a stiff laugh when she told me. No, not Freddy Krueger. I asked her if I could hang out and she simply shrugged. She never pushed me, never asked me why I was dressed like I was going out, why I would want to hang out in a dungeon instead.

Unlike Bonnie or Tory, who would have drilled me until I gave something up. She hasn’t even mentioned River once. And I’ve appreciated it. It allowed me the chance to wrap my mind around what Duffy told me, and what I know of River, and how those two things just can’t possibly align.

But I guess all things must come to an end; the better they are, the faster.

Tonight’s the first time since I got on that plane out of Oregon that I’ve wanted to climb onto another one and go home. The sooner Sunday comes, the better.

“I wasn’t stood up,” I deny quietly.

By the flat gaze in her eyes, I don’t think she believes me. I brace myself for some smart-ass comment, some glib joke about the Sheriff’s Daughter or the Rodeo Queen or Miss Perfect not getting what she wants.

“I remember this one time I got stood up . . .” She sucks her Coke up through her straw. “I mean, I’ve been stood up a few times, but this one time stung especially bad. I was twenty-one and working at a shop in Portland. I had this super-hot customer and I was crazy about him. Anyway, Nine Inch Nails was coming to Portland and he had these special connections to get backstage. He knew they were my all-time favorite band. See?” She points to her shoulder, where a small “NIN” symbol fills one petal of a black iris. I can’t stand them, or any heavy metal, preferring country and pop any day, but I keep my mouth shut and simply nod.

“So he invited me and of course I said yeah. We were supposed to meet at the gates at seven. I was there, in the cold rain. I stood there waiting for him until almost ten, until I could hear the Nails playing from inside the stadium.” She snorts. “Of course I was worried, so I kept calling him. But it went straight to voicemail. I finally got a one-line text from him that said, ‘Sorry, I fell asleep. Next time.’ ”

“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.”

Simon’s car comes to a squeaking halt in its parking spot. I’m actually impressed with myself for making it to and from Ivy’s without crashing. And I owe that to River.

Having switched my phone back on, a message from Alex fills the screen, asking me how things are going. I’m hit with the sudden urge to call her and divulge my secret. Maybe she can help me make sense of everything I’m feeling right now. It’s only dinnertime over there, so there’s still plenty of time to connect with her tonight.

There’s also a text response from River:

Okay.

That’s all. Disappointment and hurt drag my body down as I unlock the front door and step into the house I fled from hours earlier. It’s exactly as I left it in my hurry. Turning the deadbolt behind me, I kick off my boots, grab a glass of water from the kitchen, and climb the stairs, hoping a night’s sleep will relieve me of the burn in my heart. This time last night, I was curled up in that bed with River, blissfully ignorant. Setting the glass and my phone down on the nightstand, I shed my dress and my bra, letting them fall to the ground in a heap that I don’t bother to hang, as I normally would, exchanging it for a thin cotton tank top for sleep.

I don’t see him there until I turn around.

Standing in the doorway, his hands tucked into his pockets, his eyes glued to me. Staring at me, his face—illuminated by the harsh streetlights that shine into the bedroom—easy to read. Apologetic, yes. But also filled with sadness, and frustration, and regret.

River’s here.

In my house, in the middle of the night.

Waiting for me.

At least ten heartbeats pass into the silence before I manage to speak.

“Is it true?”

He sighs, and hangs his head.