“Did you inherit her passion for gardening?”
“I don’t have her green thumb, if that’s what you’re asking. But I deeply appreciate the beauty of it and understand the joyshe found in creating something beautiful.”
“I’m guessing creating is something you enjoy too, given your line of work.” Ivy reaches out and touches the ivy growing on the stone wall farthest from the house, and I’m suddenly very glad her name is Ivy. It suits her. She could have been named for any one of the stunning flowers in the garden. Her name would have been well suited to her beauty, but personality-wise, she is more like ivy. She’s not trying to catch every eye. She’s content to let people walk past her, but when she sees someone she likes, she’ll reach out and touch them. And I most certainly want Ivy to want to reach out and touch me. I need to figure out a way to encourage that growth.
“I do enjoy creating. Initially, I went to Hollywood to be more behind the scenes. I want to write or direct. But people saw me and wanted me in front of the camera. And I enjoy that too. I’m still a part of the creation, but … I don’t know. Maybe one day I’ll make the transition.”
“You’d want to entirely switch?”
“I don’t know, maybe. I enjoy acting, but a drop in notoriety would be welcome.”
She nods as if she’s thinking but doesn’t speak; she only continues around the garden. We come to a stop by the door to the house and she turns to give the garden another look.
“Thank you for showing me your mother’s special place.” She squeezes my hand that still holds hers. “I feel honored tohave seen it.”
I step closer and take my time tucking a bit of her hair behind her ear before leaning in and placing a slow kiss on her cheek. I linger a moment, basking in her nearness, before straightening to catch her eye.
“This felt like a must-kiss moment, even for a pretend couple.”
“Mmm hmm. I agree.”
She looks a little starry-eyed. A look that tells me she may let me kiss her for real. But the stakes are too high to jump in too soon, and I’m not going to risk doing something she doesn’t want—or does, but may regret later. So I open the door for her to lead us back inside.
We’re sitting on the sofa in the living room watching a movie, the candy and popcorn I bought strewn out on the table in front of us. Ivy sat down on the far end of the sofa from me and that’s okay. Why? Because that tells me she’s feeling things.
“Do you know any of the people in this movie?” she whispers, looking at me across the divide.
“Yes. I know both main characters. I went to a Halloween party at Chip’s last year.”
“One of my servers at Bowl had a Halloween party last year,and I went.”
“So you went to a coworker’s party like I went to a coworker's party. That’s what you’re saying?”
“Yep.” Ivy turned her eyes back to the screen.
“Except I’ve never worked with Chip.”
She shrugs, keeping her eyes on the film. “You work in the same office; you just have yet to overlap on a project.”
“Fair enough.”
We’re minutes from the ending credits when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out to find a text from Mr. Crawley. I hold on to it until the movie ends.
“That was good,” Ivy says, scooting to the edge of her seat, like she’s getting up.
“It was. I just got a new riddle from my aunt’s solicitor.”
She looks at her phone. “At ten-thirty at night?”
“I think she must have been very specific with the timing of the messages.” I shrug and hold my phone out for her.
“Chaucer tells us a great tale. So old you feel you need chainmail. The city has walls and inside you will find. A large and beautiful, building divine.” She looked up at me when she finished reading. “The last two lines don’t really rhyme.”
I laugh. “She’s been hit or miss with her rhyming for this whole thing.”
She looks down at the screen, thinking, and I don’t mention that I already figured it out. Aunt Agnes gave it away withthe first line, but apparently Ivy hasn’t read Chaucer's famous work. Ivy seems like the type to like to solve riddles, so I’ll let her have some fun.
“Some sort of preserved medieval city, or town? And Chaucer, I’ve heard of him, but I don’t know what he wrote. Wait. Wasn’t he that guy inA Knight’s Tale? The guy who likes to be naked. Or maybe that’s just how I remember him.”
