Page 15 of Jane, Unlimited

“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?”

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