“‘—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?”
P1-6
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 some other juniors and seniors who had slipped away from their projects during the activity 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.”
That elicited some soft booing from the stands.
“And for heaven’s sake, Sam, stop bouncing!”
The audience snickered.
When the students had finished several circuits, they gathered at the deep end of the pool, beneath the high dive.
“Eyes here,” their teacher commanded. “You’re not with me.” Leaning close to them, he said, “This is a lesson in enunciation and concentration. I’ll find it unforgivable if any one of you lets those groundlings distract you.”
At that, nearly everyone in the class glanced toward the stands. The pool door opened, and more spectators entered, all of them guys.
“Are we ready? Are we preparing ourselves?”
For the exercise, each student had to memorize at least twenty-five lines of poetry or prose, something about love or death—“the two great themes of life and drama,” Mr. McCardell had said.
Ivy had patched together two early-English love lyrics, one funny and one sad. She silently ran over their lines. She thought she knew them by heart, but when the first student climbed the thin metal ladder, every word went out of her head. Ivy’s pulse began to race as if she were the one on the ladder. She took deep breaths.
“Are you okay?” Beth whispered.
“Tell him, Ivy!” Suzanne urged. “Explain to McCardell how you feel.”
Ivy shook her head. “I’m fine.”
The first three students delivered their lines mechanically, but all of them kept their balance, bouncing up and down on the board. Then Sam fell in. With arms wheeling like some huge, strange bird, he came crashing down into the water.
Ivy swallowed hard.
Mr. McCarde
ll called her name.
She climbed the ladder, slowly and steadily, rung by rung, her heart pounding against her ribs. Her arms felt stronger than her shaky legs. She used them to pull herself up onto the board, then stopped. Below her the water danced, dark wavelets with fluorescent sparkles.
Ivy focused on the end of the board, as she had been taught to do on a balance beam, and took three steps. She felt the board give beneath her weight. Her stomach dropped with it, but she kept on walking.
“You may begin,” said Mr. McCardell.
Ivy turned her thoughts inward for a moment, trying to find her lines, trying to remember the pictures she had imagined when she first read the poetry. She knew that if she did this simply as an exercise, she would not get through it. She had to perform, she had to lose herself to the poems’ emotions.
She found the first few words of the humorous poem, and suddenly in her mind’s eye saw the pictures she needed; a glittering bride, stunned guests, and a shower of rolling vegetables. Far below her, her audience laughed as she recited lines about the silliness of love. Then, continuing her jumping motion, she found the slower, sadder rhythm of the second poem:
Western wind, when will thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!
She jumped for two beats more, then stood still at the end of the board, catching her breath. Suddenly applause rang out. She had done it!
When the cheers died down, Mr. McCardell said, “Nice enough,” which was high praise from him.
“Thank you, sir,” Ivy replied. Then she tried to turn around for the walk back.
As she started to turn she felt her knees buckle, and she quickly stiffened herself. Don’t look down.
But she had to see where she was stepping. She took a deep breath and attempted to turn again.
“Ivy, is there a problem?” Mr. McCardell asked.
“She’s afraid of water,” Suzanne blurted. “And she can’t swim.”
Below Ivy the pool seemed to rock, its edges blurred. She tried to focus on the board. She couldn’t. The water came rushing at her, ready to swallow her up. Then it receded, dropping away, far, far below her. Ivy swayed on her feet. One knee went down.
“Oh!” The cry echoed up from the spectators.
Her other knee went down and slipped off the board. Ivy clung with the desperation of a cat. She dangled, half on, half off the board.
“Somebody help her!” cried Suzanne.
Water angel, Ivy prayed silently. Water angel, don’t let me fall. You helped me once. Please, angel …
Then Ivy felt movement in the board. It trembled in her arms. Her hands were damp and slippery. Just drop, she told herself. Trust your angel. Your angel won’t let you drown. Water angel, she prayed a third time, but her arms wouldn’t let go. The board continued to vibrate. Her hands were slipping.
“Ivy.”
She turned her face at the sound of his voice, scraping her cheek on the board. Tristan had climbed the ladder and was standing at the other end. “Everything is going to be all right, Ivy.”
Then he started toward her. The fiberglass plank flexed under his weight.
“Don’t!” Ivy cried, clinging desperately to the board. “Don’t bend it. Please! I’m afraid.”
“I can help you. Trust me.”
Her arms ached. Her head felt light, her skin cold and prickly. Beneath her, the water swirled dizzily.
“Listen to me, Ivy. You’re not going to be able to keep holding on that way. Roll on your side a little. Roll, okay? Get your right arm free. Come on. I know you can do it.”
Ivy slowly shifted her weight. For a moment she thought she was going to roll right off the board. Her freed arm waved frantically.
“You got it. You got it,” he said.
He was right. She had a good hold, both hands squarely on the board.
“Now inch up. Pull yourself all the way onto the board. That’s the way.” His voice was steady and sure. “Which knee is your favorite knee?” he asked.
She frowned up at him.
“Are you right-kneed or left-kneed?” He was smiling at her.
“Uh, right-kneed, I guess.”
“Loosen up your right hand, then. And pull your right knee up, tuck it under you.” She did. A moment later both knees were under her.
“Now crawl to me.”
She looked down at the rocking bowl of water.
“Come to me, Ivy.”
The distance was only eight feet—it looked like eight miles. She made her way slowly along the board. Then she felt a hand gripping hard on each arm. He stood up, pulling her up with him, and quickly turned her around. Ivy went limp with relief.
“Okay, I’m right behind you now. We’ll take one step at a time. I’m right here.” He began to move down the ladder.
One step at a time, Ivy repeated to herself. If only her legs would stop shaking. Then she felt his hand lightly on her ankle, guiding it down to the metal rung. At last they stood together at the bottom.
Mr. McCardell glanced away from her, obviously uncomfortable.
“Thank you,” Ivy said quietly to Tristan.
Then she rushed into the locker room before Tristan or the others could see her frightened tears.
In the parking lot that afternoon, Suzanne tried to talk Ivy into coming home with her to the Goldstein house.
“Thanks, but I’m tired,” Ivy said. “I think I should go … home.” It was still strange to think of the Baines house as home.
“Well, why don’t we just drive around some first?” Suzanne suggested. “I know a great cappuccino place where none of the kids go, at least none from our school. We can talk without being interrupted.”
“I don’t need to talk, Suzanne. I’m okay. Really. But if you want to just hang out, you can come home with me.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
Ivy cocked her head. “You would think you were the one who’d been stranded up there on the diving board.”
“It felt like it,” said Suzanne.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d fallen from the ladder and hit your head on the concrete. I just invited you to Gregory’s house.”
Suzanne fiddled with her lipstick, rolling it up and down, up and down in its case. “That’s just it. You know how I am, Ivy—like a bloodhound on the hunt. I can’t help myself. If he’s there, I’ll get completely distracted. And right now you need my attention.”
“But I don’t need anybody’s attention! I had a bad time in drama club and—”
“Got rescued.”
“Got rescued—”
“By Tristan.”
“By Tristan, and now—”
“You’ll live happily ever after,” said Suzanne.
“Now I’ll go home, and if you want to come with me and start baying at Gregory, fine. It will keep us all entertained.”
Suzanne debated for a moment, then stretched her freshly darkened lips. “Did I get it on my teeth?”
“If you didn’t talk constantly, you wouldn’t have this problem,” Ivy said, and pointed to a smudge of red. “Right there.”
When they arrived home, Gregory’s BMW was in the driveway. “Well, we’re all in luck,” said Ivy.
But when they got inside the house, Ivy could hear her mother’s voice, high and excited, being answered quickly each time by Gregory’s. She and Suzanne exchanged glances, then followed the sound of the voices to Andrew’s office.
“Is something wrong?” asked Ivy.
“That’s what’s wrong!” said her mother, pointing to a silk-covered chair. Its back hung in shreds.
“Ouch!” Ivy exclaimed. “What happened to it?”
“Perhaps my father was filing his nails,” Gregory suggested.
“It’s Andrew’s favorite chair,” said Maggie. Her cheeks were quite pink. Her sprayed hair was falling out of its twist in grasslike wisps. “And
this fabric is not exactly cheap, Ivy.”
“Well, Mother, I didn’t do it!”
“Let me check your nails,” said Gregory.
Suzanne laughed.
“Ella did it,” Maggie said.
“Ella!” Ivy shook her head. “That’s impossible! Ella’s never scratched anything in her life.”
“Ella doesn’t like Andrew,” Philip said. He had been standing quietly in the corner of the room. “She did it because she doesn’t like Andrew.”
Maggie whirled around. Ivy caught her mother by the hand. “Easy,” she said. Then she examined the back of the chair. Gregory watched her and examined the chair himself. It seemed to Ivy to be too finely shredded—a job too convincing for Philip to have pulled off. Ella must have been guilty.
“We’re going to have to declaw her,” said Maggie.
“No!”
“Ivy, there are too many valuable pieces of furniture in this house. They cannot be ruined. Ella will have to be declawed.”
“I won’t let you.”
“She’s just a cat.”
“And this is just a piece of furniture,” Ivy said, her voice cold and steely.
“It’s that, or get rid of her.”
Ivy folded her arms across her chest. She was two inches taller than her mother.
“Ivy—” She could see her mother’s eyes misting over. That was what she had been like for the past few months, emotional, pleading, insisting with tears. “Ivy, this is a new life, these are new ways for all of us. You told me yourself: For all the good things that are happening, this isn’t a fairy-tale ending. We all have to try to make it work.”
“Where is Ella now?” Ivy asked.
“In your bedroom. I closed the hall door, and the attic one too, so she wouldn’t ruin anything else.”
Ivy turned to Gregory. “Would you get Suzanne something to drink?”
“Of course,” he said.
Then Ivy went up to her room. She sat for a long time, cradling Ella in her lap and gazing up at her water angel.
“What do I do now, angel?” she prayed. “What do I do now? Don’t tell me to give up Ella! I can’t give her up. I can’t!”
In the end, she did. In the end, Ivy couldn’t take the outdoors away from Ella. She couldn’t leave her fierce little street cat vulnerable to anything that would take a swipe at her. Though it just about broke her heart, and Philip’s too, she posted the adoption ad on the school bulletin board Thursday afternoon.