"I have to get a team program," Suzanne said after several minutes of watching. "What if I start drooling over number forty-nine and discover he's just a sophomore?"
"A hunk's a hunk," Beth replied philosophically. "And older women with younger guys are in."
"Don't tell Gregory I'm looking," Suzanne said in a stage whisper as they moved on toward their cars.
"Isn't looking allowed?" Beth asked innocently.
"On second thought, tell him, tell him!" Suzanne said, flinging her arms out dramatically. "Let him know, Ivy, I'm out and looking."
Ivy just smiled. From the beginning, Suzanne and Gregory had played mind games with each other.
"I mean, why should I tie myself down to one guy?" Suzanne continued.
Ivy knew this was just an act. Suzanne had been obsessed with Gregory since March and wanted desperately to tie him down to her.
"I'm going to start at the Baines Bash." She unlocked her car door.
"That's where a lot of school romances have started, you know."
"How many are you planning for yourself?" Ivy teased.
"Six."
"Great," Beth said. "That's six more heartbreaks for me to write about."
"I'd settle for five romances," Suzanne added, giving Ivy a sly look, "if you'll take the other one and stop thinking about Tristan."
Ivy didn't reply.
Suzanne got in her car, closed the door, and reached across to unlock the passenger-side door. But before Ivy could open it, Beth caught her hand.
She spoke quickly, quietly: "You can't forget, Ivy. Not yet. It would be dangerous to forget."
In the back of her mind, Ivy felt that prickling feeling again.
Then Beth yanked open her own car door, hopped in, and drove away fast.
Suzanne glanced in the rearview mirror, frowning. "I don't know what's gotten into that girl. Lately she's been hopping around like a scared rabbit. What did she just say to you?"
Ivy shrugged. "Just gave me a little advice."
"Don't tell me-she got another one of her premonitions."
Ivy remained silent.
Suzanne laughed. "You've got to admit, Ivy, Beth's flaky. I never take her 'advice' seriously. You shouldn't, either."
"I haven't so far," Ivy said. And both times, she thought, I've been sorry I didn't.
"Yo! Romeo! Where art thou? Rooo-me-ooo," Lacey called.
Tristan, who had been following Ivy down the wide center stair of the Baines home, stopped at the landing and stuck his head out an open window.
Lacey smiled up at him from the middle of a flower bed, the only piece of Andrew Baines's property that hadn't been overrun by the hundreds of guests with their picnic blankets and baskets. A Caribbean steel band was warming up on the patio. Paper lanterns hung from the pines around the tennis court; beneath them tables were laid out with refreshments.
Long before Tristan met Ivy, long before Andrew surprised everyone by marrying Maggie, Tristan had come to this annual party. He remembered how huge the white clapboard home had seemed to him as a little boy, with its east and west wings and double chimneys and rows of heavy black shutters-like a house that would be pictured in his mother's New England calendar.
"Ditch the chick, Romeo," Lacey called up to him. "You're missing a great party. Especially under some of the bushes."
Even now, after two and a half months of being an angel, Tristan's first instinct was to quiet her. But no one else could hear them, except when Lacey chose to project her voice, a power he hadn't yet mastered.
He gave her a lopsided smile, then withdrew from the window. At the same moment that Tristan turned back toward the stairs, Ivy stopped and turned toward the window.
Instantly he began hoping. She senses something, he thought.
But Ivy looked right through him, then without hesitation moved past him.
She leaned upon the sill of the window, gazing wistfully at the scene before her. Tristan stood beside her and watched as torches were lit, flaring up suddenly in the summer twilight.
Ivy turned her head, and Tristan did, too, following her gaze to Will, who was standing at the edge of the crowd, surveying it. Suddenly Will looked up, meeting Ivy's eyes. Tristan knew what Will saw: brilliant green eyes and a tumbleweed of blond hair falling over her shoulders.
Ivy looked down at Will for what seemed like forever, then stepped back abruptly, her hands going up to her cheeks. Tristan pulled back just as fast. Take a picture, Will, it lasts longer, he thought, then quickly descended the steps.
Lacey was waiting on the patio, amusing herself by hitting the drummer's cymbal every time he turned his back. Of course, the drummer didn't see her, not even the purple shimmer that some believers glimpsed.
She winked at Tristan.
"I'm not here to fool around," he said.
"Okay, sweetie, let's get down to business," Lacey said, giving him a little push. Though they could slip through other people's bodies, they appeared and felt solid to each other.
"I want to show you someone who's gulping down drinks over by the tennis court," Lacey told him, but first she headed for Philip's tree house. She simply couldn't resist the opportunity to knock away the tree's swing seat when a girl in a pink sundress tried to sit on it.
"Lacey, act your age."
"I will," she said, "just as soon as you decide to act like an angel."
"Seems to me I am," he said.
She shook her head. Her purple spiked hair, like his own thick brown crop, did not move with the breeze.
"Repeat after me," Lacey instructed in an obnoxious teacher voice. "Ivy's breathing, Will's breathing, I'm not."
"It's just that she looked straight at me at the train station," Tristan said. "I was sure she believed‚again.
When I pulled her and Philip back, I was sure Ivy saw me."
"If she did, she's forgotten it," Lacey said.
"I have to get her to remember. Beth-" "Is feeling too rattled to help you out," Lacey cut in. "She predicted the break-in, then foresaw danger that night at the train station. She has a special gift, but she's too frightened to be an open channel anymore."
"Then Philip."
"Philip! Oh, puh-lease. How long do you think Gregory's going to put up with the kid who keeps talking about angel Tristan?"
Tristan knew she was right.
"That leaves Will," Lacey said. She walked backward and pointed a long purple nail at him. "So. Just how jealous are you?"
"Very," he replied honestly, then sighed. "You know how you feel about the actress who took your place in that film, the one you said stinks?"
"She does stink," Lacey said quickly.
"Multiply that feeling by a thousand. And the thing is, Will's not a bad guy. He'd be good for Ivy, and all I want is what's good for Ivy. I love her. I'd do anything for her-" "Die, for instance," Lacey said. "But you've already tried that, and look where it got you."
Tristan grimaced. "Time with you."
She grinned, then nudged him. "Look over there. Next to the lady who looks like she got her perm and cut at the poodle parlor. Recognize him?"
"It's Caroline's friend," Tristan said, observing the tall dark-haired man. "The one who leaves roses on her grave."
"He creamed Andrew at tennis and looked like he enjoyed every minute of it."
"Did you find out his name?" Tristan asked.
"Tom Stetson. He's a teacher at Andrew's college. I tell you, who needs soap operas when you can hang around Stone hill? Do you think it was a long, torrid, secret affair? Do you think Andrew knew? Yo, Tristan!"
"I hear you," he said, but his eyes were focused on the crowd twenty feet away, where Ivy, Will, and Beth were talking.
"Oh, the" arrows of love,"Lacey crooned. He hated it when she exaggerated her words like that. "I swear, Tristan, that girl's put so many holes in you, one day you're going to fold over like a slice of Swiss cheese."