KEEP PLANNING – Ivy Grimes

My grandfather gave me a $222 dollar bill, and I thanked him. Once he left the room, I asked my grandmother to take it and give me two hundreds for it. “Why would you give up twenty-two dollars?” She pressed her knees together and clasped her hands like she was leading me in prayer. We whispered so grandfather wouldn’t hear, even though he’d gone upstairs and could barely hear us when we were shouting right next to him. “This is something special, like a two-dollar bill, but more so. I can’t actually spend it. I’d have to keep it as a souvenir,” I said, admiring the dreamy sunset colors of the bill. I didn’t have much time for the frivolities of hobbies anymore, but when I was younger, I had always loved to paint the sky. “And?” “And tonight, it will cost me fifteen dollars to get into the dance and at least twenty dollars to pay for drinks, and I have no money to spend.” “I’m afraid I can’t help you, dear. That’s all we have.” I chuckled meanly to myself as I left their handsome condo. Those fancy bills were all they had! Only collectors’ items. Maybe they’d sunk all their practical currency into the stranger kind. As I trudged down the sidewalk, a fine drizzle caused my hair to curl, giving me a free perm for the dance, which I appreciated. At least Mother Nature took pity on me. It had been so difficult to get established in the city. My family was still relatively new, and this was the first dance available to me. I hadn’t been invited, exactly, but it was the first time the details hadn’t been hidden from me. Since I’d had no luck with my grandparents, and my parents were still in our home country, the next closest relative I could ask for help was my uncle, so I went to see him at his modest apartment. There, the hallways smelled like grease and cheap soap, and the carpet needed replacing. It was in far better condition than my apartment, of course, but I hoped that when I was my uncle’s age, I’d live in a manor on the periphery of the city. My uncle was a kind man, and he was generous with his ideas if not his money. He’d just gotten home from work when I knocked, and he invited me in to sit at his kitchen table while he made us cups of Irish coffee. I told him all about my problem. “That is a funny dilemma,” he said when I showed him the $222 dollar bill. “You should just spend it.” “It’s not funny at all! If grandfather would get a hearing aid, he might understand that I need real spending money to go to the dance. I can’t betray him by using his special gift. Look how beautiful it is.” It was beautiful! On the front was a lively sketch of an urban silver dove, and on the back, outlines of the skyscrapers were dabbled impressionistically in gossamer pinks and blues. Ordinary $20 bills had a solemn gray portrait of the city’s richest businessman, the weaselly Senator Conwell S. March on the front and an engraving of the city’s oldest bank on the back. Still, I wished I had the practical drive to give up my beautiful bill for the plain kind. “To achieve grandfather’s goals for you, you will have to betray him,” my uncle said. “Ponder that for a moment and see if you can tell me what I mean.” “Like a riddle?” He nodded his head once and touched his finger to his nose. “Well, he moved to the city so we could all be successful here. He calls it believing and achieving. He says that all we can get back home are methamphetamines, tick-borne diseases, a hitman who overcharges us, and too much information about football.” “But does he talk about our hometown that way to people in the city?” I thought about it and shook my head. “No, he tells them we’re from a refined family with old connections to the city. He says we moved to the country a little while ago to make a fortune in soda, and now we’re moving back to the city to reconnect with our roots.” “Even if that were true, which it’s not, it’s not what city people want to hear from country people. Not our kind, anyway.” My uncle swallowed the rest of his Irish coffee and made himself another cup while he dispensed his wisdom. “What do they want to hear from us?” It was something I thought about all the time, especially when pretty girls wouldn’t return my smile. I assumed they wanted me to speak with their accents and see the same movies they saw. “They want to hear us make fun of our accents, joke about the possum that mom used to make for Sunday dinner, and tell stories about fights we’ve gotten into at bars in the middle of the woods. Don’t you think I know? I wouldn’t have the job I have, meager as it is, if it weren’t for playing my part. And that part betrays what we are and where we came from. It betrays those who came before. It betrays ourselves, our ancestors, and even your grandpa.” I laughed. “But I have gotten into fights at bars in the woods, and so have you! We both got into a fight at the Mustard Gas in Hartwell. Remember?” My uncle laughed too, and I was glad to see he hadn’t lost himself entirely in his new role. “I miss those days,” he said. “I miss them too! But there’s only one way forward, and that’s through the dance. Can you lend me at least thirty-five dollars?” I asked. He shook his head, his green eyes overflowing like a swamp in a hurricane. “I don’t have it, sad to say. I had to take out a loan from my company to keep from losing this place when they raised the rent. If I don’t find a way to get a raise soon, I might be moving in with you.” Poor guy. If he came to see me with all his stuff, though, I’d pretend not to be home. The only thing worse than living in my little ugly apartment would be sharing it with someone else. It was still drizzling when I left my uncle’s apartment, but as I approached my dilapidated side of town, the sun emerged to shine on garbage cans and give everything a rancid smell. Defeated, I trudged up the five flights of stairs to my little place. My parents had agreed to pay for it until I could get a job of my own, but because of my lack of status in the city, I was blocked from employment. Until I got into a dance and started mixing with other young people in the city, no one was going to give me a job. My apartment was one small room with peeling wallpaper and an unsettling sweetish smell that arose from an infestation of bugs and various powdery methods used to treat them. I changed into the dark gray suit I’d brought from home. It was the first time I’d had occasion to wear it. I admired myself from all angles in the mirror. Even if the others at the dance had newer outfits and smelled better and said the right things, I was sure I’d be somewhat appealing. The only other person I could ask for help was my landlord, a friend of my parents. The few friends I’d made who were like me in status were always in the hole, and I bet none of them had even seen a $222 dollar bill. I walked down the stairs at a careful pace so I wouldn’t sweat too much in my suit. My landlord lived on the first floor, and it was only my family connection that granted me entry into his apartment building. His apartment was much nicer than mine, of course, though not quite as nice as my uncle’s. The same bugs that visited me visited him, I was certain, and he barely had room for a kitchen table. When I knocked, there was the customary silence for a bit as he examined me through his peephole, then admitted me. “What brings you here? Did you finally get a job?” he said. “I believe I’m close,” I said. “Finally, I know about a dance that’s happening tonight. Someone mentioned it right in front of me.” His face lit up. “A dance! That could really lead to something.” “Yes,” I said. “A date, a partner, a job, a nice apartment. One after another.” “Is that how you got this apartment building?” I said. “Through a dance?” His face twisted like he’d bitten down on something too hard for his teeth. “Not at all. I was never made aware of a dance. If that had happened to me, do you think I’d be in a dump like this?” “I meant no offense. I am still learning how things work here.” “None taken. Maybe if you make inroads at this dance, you can invite me to one in the future.” I smiled noncommittally. If I was ever lucky enough to really get inside the city, I couldn’t bring my landlord with me. He had taken on the worst aspects of both the old country and the city, the smell of manure lingering on his skin while the odor of the bug infestation had nested in his hair. He wore clothes made of cut-up sheets. “I suppose you think I should give up hope,” he said. “But if I ever really give up hope, I’ll leave the city altogether.” “Me too,” I said, though I couldn’t imagine the shame of returning home to my parents and friends and siblings and admitting that the city had been too big for me. “That’s why I need your help. It will cost me at least thirty-five dollars to attend this dance. Fifteen for admittance, and twenty for drinks. I can’t go in without drinking at least the basic drinks or else I’ll look like a rube, and I’ll never be a success!” I made my case like a lawyer, hoping he’d offer me the money. “You know I’m cash-strapped all the time, and here it is at the end of the month!” he said. “Half of the tenants pay late, and no one pays early. I cannot lend you any money.” “Not even out of what my parents pay?” “No, they made me promise not to loan you any money or have any money dealings with you at all. Your rent is between me and them, I’m afraid, a contract between old friends. You should see your grandparents for money, as I wager they’ll have at least some to spare. That is, if they didn’t spend it all on that fancy condo of theirs.” He sneered, which made me want to defend my grandparents, but I couldn’t afford to alienate my landlord or anyone. Instead, I showed him the gift that was driving me crazy, the $222 bill. “What a beauty!” he said. “How did your grandfather get his hands on this? Look at how iridescent the birds and buildings are. I wonder who drew those.” “It’s some kind of special bill, it seems, a collector’s item. If I have no choice, I suppose I’ll have to spend it, but I’m concerned. It was a gift from my grandfather, and I don’t know what he intended with it, and my grandmother wouldn’t take it from me. Maybe it’s a test of some kind. If I spend it, maybe he’ll disinherit me.” My landlord laughed. “It’s the kind of crazy thing your grandfather would do. Loyalty is so important to him, but he hates to explain himself.” “He’s nice, though. My grandmother is, too, even though it might not seem that way.” “Sure,” my landlord said, not unkindly. “But the way I see it, if you spend this money on the party, then you’ll have access to real society. You might not need an inheritance anymore once you make it big.” I agreed, he had a point. I took my strange bill and left the apartment building, brushing any dust that might have gathered on my suit. My stomach clenched tighter and tighter as I walked towards the wharf, where the dance was to take place at a seafood restaurant called The Roving Island. The stink of fish guts greeted me as I approached, and I wondered why the richest kids in the city would choose such a place to gather. From the outside, the restaurant was a shack, but I hoped it would be marble and gold inside, a trick to keep out the riff-raff. I’d heard that the dance would begin at seven in the evening, and I arrived right on time. I expected to join a stream of people going inside, but I was the only one. A large guy in a well-tailored pinstripe suit greeted me at the restaurant’s front door and asked who I was. I told him, and he only looked confused. He’d never heard of me. He seemed ready to turn me away until I pulled out my $222 bill. “It’s beautiful,” he said, transfixed for a moment. “It was a gift.” When he took it from me, my eyes filled with tears. “You can go inside,” he said. “Could I have my change?” I could not afford such a large bribe. I didn’t know if my grandfather would ever give me such a gift again. “At the end,” he said. “Will this cover my drinks, too?” “Of course, have as many drinks as you want.” He seemed like a good guy, like someone you’d ask to help you move. He pointed me down a wood-paneled hallway, and I stood up straight before making my entrance. My journey through the hallway felt very long, just as hallways did when I was a child with little legs that couldn’t carry me as quickly as my parents. It felt like I was like walking on a path through the woods, the walls like trees on either side of me. For a moment, I wished I was back home in the woods, where I didn’t have to fear clearings because they were really clear, with no one there to stare at me. And yet, if no one liked me, I’d never get a job or a girlfriend or enter into any kind of life in the city. I’d graduate into permanent failure. When I emerged, ready to smile and ask everyone to dance, I found myself in a brightly-lit studio instead of a ballroom, and instead of a crowd, I was in the presence of only one familiar man who was sketching away at a white drafting table. “Grandfather?” He winked at me. “I’ve been waiting for you for some time.” “It took me all day to work up the nerve to pay with your special bill,” I said. I walked up to him and saw that he was drawing another $222 bill, but this time he was festooning the front of the bill with holiday wreaths. “There’s more where that came from,” he said, and he showed me to my own white drafting table, my own stack of blank currency paper. “This is my business, and I am considering bringing you in. You can’t get everyone to accept these, but most people want to.” I considered how my grandfather had obtained his condo without entering fully into the life of the city. Whatever his relationships with the others in the city, some of them took his money. He’d been able to convince some of my peers to mention a dance around me. A dance that wasn’t to be. “With these beauties, you’ll be able to throw your own dance!” he told me, which almost caused my heart to stop. It was probably one of his exaggerations. Who would come to a party thrown by me, unless I bribed them all with my strange currency? Then again, perhaps I could draw enough $222 bills to give them away like party favors. “Is my uncle in on this, too?” I said. “If so, he’s a better liar than you. You’ve always been aloof, but he seems so earnest, I didn’t know he was hiding anything.” “What, your uncle?” He cupped his hand over his ear. “He can’t come in here. He likes to do things the hard way, so I never let him in on my secret. Go ahead now, draw one for me!” I took a seat, sweating. This was as important an audition as the dance would have been. This was the only profession where I had the connections to possibly succeed. I had never thought of myself as an artist, though I’d always loved to doodle. I picked up a red pen and drew an outline of my landlord’s face looming high in the sky like the noon sun. But beneath his portrait, I wrote the name of the city’s founder. “Ha! That’ll cause them to scratch their heads,” grandfather said. “Now do the back.” On the back, I drew the dance I’d dreamed of. It was the sort of event that was too beautiful to exist. There was a ballroom, stately and grand, with platters of food, crystal punch bowls, wild-eyed women. I was so focused on all the details, I forgot what I was doing. I felt like I was really there in my drawing, swaying and laughing in shades of orange, until my grandfather clapped me on the back. “Not bad at all! With a little more practice, you’ll be a natural,” he said.

*** Ivy Grimes' stories have appeared in The Baffler, Vastarien, hex, Maudlin House, ergot., Ninth Letter Featured Writer, and elsewhere. She is the author of the collection Glass Stories (Grimscribe Press), the novel The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion (Cemetery Gates), and the novella The Cellar Below the Cellar (Violet Lichen). For more, please visit www.ivyivyivyivy.com. 8 May 2026