"I can't believe he beat me two out of three!"
"Almost three out of three," Philip crowed.
"That will teach you not to mess with Ginger," Ivy said.
Tristan frowned down at the angel statue that stood alone on the checkerboard. Philip always used her as one of his playing pieces.
The three-inch china angel had once been Ivy's, but when Philip was in kindergarten, he'd decided to pretty her up. Pink-frost nail polish on her dress and crusty gold glitter on her hair had given her a whole new look; and Ivy had given her to Philip.
"Ginger's very smart," he told Tristan.
Tristan glanced up doubtfully at Ivy.
"Maybe next time Philip will let you borrow her and you can win," Ivy said with a smile, then turned to Philip. "Isn't it getting late?"
"Why do you always say that?" her brother asked.
Tristan grinned. "Because she's trying to get rid of you. Come on. We'll read two stories, like the last time, then it's lights out."
He walked Philip down to his bedroom. Ivy stayed upstairs and began to flip through her piano books, looking for songs that Tristan might like. He was into hard rock, but she couldn't exactly play it on the piano. He knew nothing about Beethoven and Bach. Tristan's idea of classical music was the musicals from his parents' collection. She ran through several songs from Carousel, then put the old book aside.
All night there had been music running through her like a silver river. Now she turned out the lights and played it from memory, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
Tristan returned in the middle of the sonata. He saw the slight hesitation in her hands and heard the pause in the music.
"Don't stop," he said softly, and came to stand behind her.
Ivy played to the end. For a few moments after the last chord, neither of them spoke, neither of them moved. There was only the still, silver moonlight on the piano keys, and the music, the way music can linger on sometimes in silence.
Then Ivy rested her back against him.
"You want to dance?" Tristan asked.
Ivy laughed, and he pulled her up and they danced a circle around the room. She laid her head on his shoulder and felt his strong arms around her. They danced slow, slower. She wished he would never let go.
"How do you do that?" he whispered. "How do you dance with me and play the piano at the same time?"
"At the same time?" she asked.
"Isn't that you making the music I hear?"
Ivy pulled her head up. "Tristan, that line is so… so…"
"Corny," he said. "But it got you to look up at me." Then he swiftly lowered his mouth and stole a long, soft kiss.
"Don't forget to tell Tristan to stop by the shop sometime," Lillian said. "Betty and I would love to see him again. We're very fond of chunks."
"Hunks, Lillian," Ivy said with a grin. "Tristan is a hunk." My hunk, she thought, then picked up a box wrapped in brown paper. "Is this everything to be delivered?"
"Yes, thank you, dear. I know it's out of your way.
"Not too far," Ivy said, starting out the door.
"Five-twenty-eight Willow Street," Betty called from the back of the store.
"Five-thirty," Lillian said quietly.
Well, that narrows it down, Ivy thought, passing through the door of 'Tis the Season. She glanced at her watch. Now she wouldn't have time to spend with her friends.
Suzanne and Beth had been waiting for her at the mall's food court.
"You said you would be off twenty minutes ago," Suzanne complained.
"I know. It's been one of those days," Ivy replied. "Will you walk me to my car? I have to deliver this, then get right home."
"Did you hear that? She has to get right home," Suzanne said to Beth, "for a birthday party, that's what she says. She says it's Philip's ninth birthday."
"It's May twenty-eighth," Ivy responded. "You know it is, Suzanne."
"But for all we know," Suzanne went on to Beth, "it's a private wedding on the hill."
Ivy rolled her eyes, and Beth laughed. Suzanne still hadn't forgiven her for keeping secret the swimming lessons.
"Is Tristan coming tonight?" Beth asked as they exited the mall.
"He's one of Philip's two guests," Ivy replied, "and will be sitting next to Philip, not me, and playing all night with Philip, not me. Tristan promised. It was about the only way to keep my brother from coming with us to the prom. Hey, where did you two park?"
Suzanne couldn't remember and Beth hadn't noticed. Ivy drove them around and around the mall lot. Beth looked for the car while Suzanne advised Ivy on clothes and romance. She covered everything from telephone strategies and how not to be too available to working hard at looking casual. She had been giving volumes of advice for the last three weeks.
"Suzanne, I think you make dating too complicated," Ivy said at last. "All this plotting and planning. It seems pretty simple to me."
Incredibly simple, she thought. Whether she and Tristan were relaxing or studying together, whether they were sitting silently side by side or both trying to talk at the same time-which they did frequently-these last few weeks had been incredibly easy.
"That's because he's the one," Beth said knowingly.
There was only one thing about Ivy that Tristan couldn't understand. The angels.
"You've had a difficult life," he had said to her one night. It was the night of the prom-or rather, the morning after, but not yet dawn. They were walking barefoot in the grass, away from the house to the far edge of the ridge. In the west, a crescent moon hung like a leftover Christmas ornament. There was one star. Far below them, a train wound its silver path through the valley.
"You've been through so much, I don't blame you for believing," Tristan said.
"You don't blame me? You don't blame me? What do you mean by that?" But she knew what he meant. To him, an angel was just a pretty teddy bear-something for a child to cling to.
He held her tightly in his arms. "I can't believe, Ivy. I have all I need and all I want right here on earth," he said. "Right here. In my arms."
"Well, I don't," she replied, and even in the pale light, she could see the sting in his eyes. They started to fight then. Ivy realized for the first time that the more you love, the more you hurt.
What was worse, you hurt for him as well as for yourself.
After he left, she cried all morning. Her phone calls hadn't been returned that afternoon. But he came back in the evening, with fifteen lavender roses. One for each angel, he said.
"Ivy! Ivy, did you hear anything I just said?" Suzanne asked, jolting her back to the present.
"You know, I thought if we got you a boyfriend, you'd come down to earth a little. But I was wrong. Head still in the clouds! Angel zone!"
"We didn't get her a boyfriend," Beth said quietly but firmly. "They found each other. Here's the car, Ivy. Have a good time tonight. We'd better dash, it's going to storm."
The girls jumped out and Ivy checked her watch again. Now she was really late. She sped over the access road and down the highway.
When she crossed the river, she noticed how rapidly the dark clouds were moving.
Her delivery was to one of the newer houses south of town, the same neighborhood where she had driven after her first swimming lesson with Tristan. It seemed as if everything she did now made her think of him.
She got just as lost this time, driving around in circles, with one eye on the clouds. Thunder rumbled. The trees shivered and turned over their leaves, shining an eerie lime green against the leaden sky. The wind began to gust. Branches whipped, and blossoms and tender leaves were torn too soon from their limbs. Ivy leaned forward in her seat, intent on finding the right house before the storm broke.