Kissed by an Angel Page 4

  Ivy had picked up her box of angels. "No, really, Gregory, I can handle this myself."

  He reached in his pocket for a penknife and slit the tape on the carton. "What's in it?"

  "Ivy's angels," said Philip.

  "The boy speaks!"

  Philip pressed his lips together.

  "Soon enough, you won't be able to shut him up," Ivy said. Then she opened the box and began to take out her carefully wrapped statues.

  Tony came out first. Then an angel carved out of soft gray stone. Then her favorite, her water angel, a fragile porcelain figure painted in a swirl of blue-green.

  Gregory watched as she unwrapped fifteen statues and set them on a shelf. His eyes were bright with amusement. "You don't take this stuff seriously, do you?"

  "What do you mean by seriously?" she asked.

  "You don't really believe in angels."

  "I do," said Ivy.

  He picked up the water angel and made her zoom around the room.

  "Put her down!" Philip cried. "She's Ivy's favorite."

  Gregory landed her facedown on a pillow.

  "You're mean!"

  "He's just playing, Philip," Ivy said, and calmly retrieved the angel.

  Gregory lay back on the bed. "Do you pray to them?" he asked.

  "Yes. To the angels, not the statues," she explained.

  "And what wonderful things have these angels done for you? Have they captured Tristan's heart?"

  Ivy glanced at him with surprise. "No. But then, I didn't pray for that."

  Gregory laughed softly.

  "Do you know Tristan?" Philip asked.

  "Since first grade," Gregory replied, then lazily extended an arm toward the cat. Ella rolled away from him.

  "He was the good kid on my Little League team," Gregory said, pulling himself up so he could reach Ella. She rose at the same time and walked to the other end of the bed. "He was the good kid on every team," Gregory said. He reached again for Ella.

  The cat hissed. Ivy saw the color rising in Gregory's cheeks.

  "Don't take it personally, Gregory," Ivy said. "Just let Ella be for a while. Cats often play hard to get."

  "Like some girls I know," he remarked. "Come here, girl." He thrust his hand toward her. The cat raised a quick black paw, claws extended.

  "Let her come to you," Ivy warned.

  But Gregory took the cat by the scruff of the neck and pulled her upward.

  "Don't!" Ivy cried.

  He pushed his other hand up under her belly. Ella bit him hard on the wrist.

  "Shoot!" He threw Ella across the room.

  Philip ran for the cat. The cat ran to Ivy. She scooped her up in her arms. Ella's tail switched back and forth; she was angry rather than hurt. Gregory watched her, the color still high in his cheeks.

  "Ella's a street kitten," Ivy told him, fighting to keep her own temper. "When I found her, she was a little bit of fur backed against a brick wall, holding her own against a big, torn-up torn. I tried to tell you. You can't come on to her that way. She doesn't trust people easily."

  "Maybe you should teach her to," Gregory said. "You trust me, don't you?" He gave her one of his crooked, questioning smiles.

  Ivy put down Ella. The cat sat under the chair and glowered at Gregory. At the sound of footsteps in the hall, she scooted under the bed.

  Andrew stood in the doorway. "How's everything?" he asked.

  "Fine," Ivy lied.

  "It stinks," said Philip.

  Andrew blinked, then nodded graciously. "Well, then," he said, "we'll have to try to make things better. Do you think we can?"

  Philip just stared at him.

  Andrew turned to Ivy. "Did you happen to open that door yet?" Ivy followed his glance to Gregory's secret steps. "The light for the upstairs is on the left side," he told her.

  Apparently he wanted her to investigate. Ivy opened the door and turned on the light. Philip, growing curious, slipped under her arm and scooted up the steps.

  "Wow!" he shouted from above them. "Wow!"

  Ivy glanced at Andrew. At the sound of Philip's excited voice, his face flushed with pleasure.

  Gregory stared intently out the window.

  "Ivy, come see!"

  Ivy hurried up the steps. She expected to see Nintendo, or Power Rangers, or maybe a life-size Don Mattingly. Instead she discovered a baby grand piano, a CD and tape player, and two cabinets filled with her musical scores. An album cover with Ella Fitzgerald's face was framed on the wall. The rest of her father's old jazz records were stored next to a cherrywood phonograph.

  "If there is anything missing…" Andrew began. He was standing next to her, puffing a little from the steps, looking hopeful. Gregory had come halfway up, just far enough to see.

  "Thanks!" was all Ivy could say. "Thanks!"

  "This is cool, Ivy," Philip said.

  "And it's for all three of us to told him, glad that he was too examine the member to sulk. Then she turned to speak to Gregory, but he had disappeared.

  Dinner that night seemed to last forever. The lavishness of Andrew's gifts, the music room for Ivy and a well-stocked playroom for Philip, was both overwhelming and embarrassing. Since Philip, growing moody once more, had decided he would not speak at all at dinner-"Maybe never again," he'd told Ivy with a pout-it was up to her to express their gratitude to Andrew. But in doing so, she walked a tightrope: when Andrew asked a second time if there was anything else she and Philip wanted, she saw how Gregory's hands tensed.

  In the middle of dessert, Suzanne telephoned. Ivy made the mistake of picking up the call in the hall outside the dining room. Suzanne was hoping for an invitation to the house that evening. Ivy told her the next day would be better.

  "But I'm all dressed!" Suzanne complained.

  "Of course you are," Ivy replied, "it's only seven-thirty."

  "I meant dressed to come over."

  "Gee, Suzanne," Ivy said, playing dumb, "you don't have to wear anything special to visit me."

  "What's Gregory doing tonight?"

  "I don't know. I haven't asked him."

  "Well, find out! Find out her name and where she lives," Suzanne ordered, "and what she's wearing and where they go. If we don't know her, find out what she looks like. I just know he has a date," she wailed, "he must!"

  Ivy had expected this. But she was worn out by the childishness of Philip and Gregory, she didn't feel like listening to the whining of Suzanne. "I've got to go now."

  "I'll die if it's Twinkie Hammonds. Do you think it's Twinkie Hammonds?"

  "I don't know. Gregory hasn't told me. Listen, I've got to go."

  "Ivy, wait! You haven't told me anything yet."

  Ivy sighed. "I'll be taking my usual lunch break at work tomorrow. Call Beth and meet me at the mall, okay?"

  "Okay, but, Ivy-" "I'd better get going now," Ivy said, "or else I'll miss my chance to hide in the trunk of Gregory's car." She hung up.

  "So, how's Suzanne?" Gregory asked. He was leaning against the frame of the door that led into the dining room, his head cocked, smiling.

  "Fine."

  "What's she doing tonight?"

  The laughter in his eyes told her that he had overheard the conversation, and that this was a tease, not sincere interest in the information.

  "I didn't ask her and she hasn't told me. But if you two would like to talk it over with each other-" He laughed, then touched Ivy on the tip of her nose. "Funny," he said. "I hope we keep you."

  Chapter 5

  It was a relief to go to work Saturday morning, a relief to be back in territory that Ivy knew.

  Greentree Mall was in the next town over but drew high-school kids from all the surrounding towns. Most of them cruised the stores and hung around the food court. 'Tis the Season, where Ivy had worked for the last year and a half, was directly across from the food court.

  The shop was owned by two old sisters, whose selection of costumes, decorations, pa-perware, and knickknacks was as eccentric as their style of bu
siness. Lillian and Betty rarely returned merchandise, and it was as if all the seasons and holidays had run into one another in one small corner of the world. Vampire costumes hung with the Stars and Stripes; Easter chickens roosted next to miniature plastic menorahs, pine-cone turkeys, and Vulcan ears from the last Trekkie convention.

  Just before one o'clock on Saturday, while waiting for Suzanne and Beth to arrive, Ivy was glancing over the day's special orders. As always, they were scrawled on Post-it notes and stuck on the wall. Ivy read one of the tags twice, then pulled it off. Couldn't be, she thought, couldn't be. Maybe there were two of them. Two guys named Tristan Carruthers?

  "Lillian, what does this mean? 'For pick-up: Bl Blup Wh and 25 pnc.'?"

  Lillian squinted at the paper. She had bifocals, but they usually rode her chest at the end of a necklace.

  "Well, twenty-five plates, napkins, and cups, you know that. Ah yes, for Tristan Carruthers- an order for the swim team party. Blue blow-up whale. I've already got it ready. He called to check on the order this morning."

  "Trist-Mr. Carruthers called?"

  Now Lillian reached for her glasses. Settling them on her nose, she looked hard at Ivy. "Mr.

  Carruthers? He didn't call you Miss Lyons," she said.

  "Why would he call me anything?" Ivy wondered aloud. "I mean, why did my name come up?"

  "He asked what hours you were working. I told him you take lunch between one and one-forty-five, but otherwise you'd be here till six." She smiled at Ivy. "And I put in a few good words for you, dear."

  "A few good words?"

  "I told him what a lovely girl you are, and what a shame it is that someone like you couldn't find a deserving gentleman friend."

  Ivy winced, but Lillian had removed her glasses again, so she didn't notice.

  "He came into the shop last week to place the order," Lillian continued. "He's quite a chunk."

  "Hunk, Lillian."

  "Pardon me?"

  "Tristan's quite a hunk."

  "Well, she's finally admitting it!" said Suzanne, striding into the store. Beth came in behind her.

  "Good work, Lillian!" The old woman winked, and Ivy stuck the Post-it back on the wall. She began to dig in her pockets for money.

  "Don't expect to eat," Suzanne warned her. "This is an interrogation."

  Twenty minutes later, Beth was just about finished with her burrito. Suzanne had made inroads on her teriyaki chicken. Ivy's pizza remained untouched.

  "How should I know?" she was saying, waving her arms with frustration. "I didn't get into his medicine cupboard!" They had hashed and rehashed and interpreted and reinterpreted every detail that Ivy had observed about Gregory's room.

  "Well, I guess you've only been there one night," Suzanne said. "But tonight, maybe. You must find out where he's going tonight. Does he have a curfew? Does he-" Ivy picked up an egg roll and stuffed it in Suzanne's mouth. "It's Beth's turn to talk," she said.

  "Oh, that's all right," Beth said. "This is interesting."

  Ivy opened Beth's folder. "Why don't you read one of your new stories," she said, "before Suzanne makes me totally crazy."

  Beth glanced at Suzanne, then cheerfully pulled out a sheaf of papers. "I'm going to use this new one for drama club on Monday. I've been experimenting with in medias res. That means starting right in the middle of the action."

  Ivy nodded to her encouragingly and took the first bite out of her pizza.

  "'She clutched the gun to her breast,'" Beth read. "'Hard and blue, cold and unyielding. Photos of him. Frail and faded photos of him-of him with her- torn-up, tear-soaked, salt-crusted photos lay scattered by her chair. She'd wash them away with her own blood-'" "Beth, Beth," Suzanne cut in. "This is lunch. Something a pound lighter?"

  Beth agreeably shuffled through the papers and began again. '"She clutched his hand to her breast. Warm and damp, soft and supple-'" "His hand or her breast?" Suzanne interrupted.

  "Quiet," said Ivy.

  "'-a hand that could hold her very soul, a hand that could lift'-a whale, a blue plastic whale, I think. What else could that be?"

  Ivy turned around quickly and looked across the mall to the shop. Betty was holding up a big piece of blue plastic and chatting away to Tristan. Lillian was standing behind Tristan at the shop entrance, beckoning furiously to her. Ivy glanced at her watch. It was 1:25, halfway through her lunch break. "She wants you," said Beth.

  Ivy shook her head at Lillian, but Lillian kept waving at her.

  "Go get 'im, girl," said Suzanne.

  "No."

  "Oh, come on, Ivy."

  "You don't understand. He knows I'm on lunch break. He's avoiding me."

  "Maybe," said Suzanne, "but I've never let a thing like that stop me."

  Now Tristan had turned around and, noticing Lillian's imitation of a highway flagman, surveyed the crowd in the food court until his eyes came to rest on Ivy. Meanwhile, Betty had managed to hook the inflatable whale up to the store's helium canister.

  "Yo!" exclaimed Beth as the whale took on a life of its own, growing like a blue thundercloud behind Tristan and Lillian. Betty disappeared on the other side of it. She must have cut it loose suddenly, for it rose to the ceiling. Tristan had to jump to nab it. Beth and Suzanne started laughing. Lillian shook her finger at Ivy, then turned to talk to Tristan.

  "I wonder what she's saying to him," Beth said.

  "A few good words," mumbled Ivy.

  Minutes later Tristan emerged from the shop clutching the bag of party stuff, which had been tied up by the sisters with a fancy blue bow. The whale trailed above and behind him. He kept his eyes straight ahead and marched toward the mall exit. Suzanne called out to him.

  Bellowed, actually. He couldn't pretend not to hear her. He looked in their direction and then, with a rather grim expression on his face, made his way toward them. Several small children followed him as if he were the Pied Piper.

  "Hi," he said stiffly. "Suzanne. Beth. Ivy. Nice to see you."

  "Nice to see you," Suzanne said, then eyed the whale. "Who's this? He's kind of cute. Newest member of the swim team?"

  Ivy noticed that Tristan's knuckles were white on the hand that held the whale's string. Muscles all the way up his arm were tense and bulging. Behind him, the kids were jumping up and down, punching at the whale.

  "Actually, the newest member of my act," he said, and turned to Ivy. "You've seen part of it- the carrot and shrimp-tail routine I do? I don't know what it is. Eight-year-olds find me irresistible."

  He glanced back at the kids. "Sorry, got to go now."

  "Noooo!" the kids cried. He let them take a few more bats at the whale, then left, weaving his way quickly through the Saturday shoppers.

  "Well!" huffed Suzanne. "Well!" She poked Ivy with her chopstick. "You could have said something! Really, girl, I don't know what is wrong with you."

  "What did you want me to say?"

  "Anything! Something! It doesn't matter-just let him know it's all right to talk to you."

  Ivy swallowed hard. She couldn't understand why Tristan did some of the things he did. He made her so self-conscious.

  "You always feel self-conscious at first," Beth said, as if reading Ivy's thoughts. "But sooner or later you'll figure out how to act around each other."

  Suzanne leaned forward. "Your problem is that you take it all too seriously, Ivy. Romance is a game, just a game."

  Ivy sighed and glanced at her watch. "I've got ten more minutes on break. Beth, how about finishing your love story?"

  Suzanne tapped Ivy's arm. "You've got two more months of school," she said. "How about starting yours?"

  Chapter 6

  Ivy stood barefoot on the clammy floor, curling up her toes. The humidity and the pool's strong smell of chlorine invaded the locker room. Metal doors slammed and the cinder-block room echoed like a cave. Everything about the pool area gave her the creeps.

  The other girls in the drama club were checking out one another's suits, rehearsing their lines
, and giggling self-consciously.

  Suzanne laid a hand on Ivy's shoulder. "You all right?"

  "I can handle this."

  "You're sure?" Suzanne didn't sound convinced.

  "I know my lines," said Ivy, "and all we have to do is jump up and down on the diving board." On the high diving board, at the deep end, without falling in, Ivy thought to herself.

  Suzanne persisted. "Listen, Ivy, I know you're McCardell's star, but don't you think you should mention to him that you don't know how to swim and are terrified of water?"

  "I told you I can do this," Ivy said, then pushed through the swinging locker room door, her legs feeling like soft rubber beneath her.

  She lined up with eleven girls and three guys along the pool's edge. Beth stood on one side of Ivy, Suzanne on the other. Ivy gazed down into the luminescent blue-green pool. It's just water, she told herself, nothing more than stuff to drink. And it's not even deep at this end.

  Beth touched her on the arm. "Well, I guess Suzanne is pleased. You invited Gregory."

  "Gregory? Of course I didn't!" Ivy turned swiftly to Suzanne.

  Suzanne shrugged. "I wanted to give him a preview of coming attractions. There'll be lots of places to sunbathe on that ridge of yours."

  "You do look great in your suit," Beth told her.

  Ivy fumed. Suzanne knew how hard this was for her, without adding Gregory to the scenario.

  She could have restrained herself just this once.

  Gregory wasn't alone in the bleachers. His friends Eric and Will were watching, as well as 68 some other juniors and seniors who had slipped away from their projects during the activy period. All of the guys watched with intense interest as the girls in the group did their stretching exercises.

  Then the class walked and trotted around the perimeter of the pool, performing their vocal drills.

  "I want to hear every consonant, every p, d, and t," Mr. McCardell called out to them, his own voice amazingly distinct in the huge echo chamber of the pool. "Margaret, Courtney, Suzanne, this isn't a beauty pageant," he hollered. "Just walk."