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?"
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.