Kissed by an Angel

the river, and how great it would be to have Gregory as an older brother. He didn't buy any of it. Actually, Ivy didn't, either.

She pushed back her chair, too quickly for Gregory to stop her, and hurried off to the kitchen.

'Dig in,' said Tristan. On the box between the kid and him sat a mound of food-charred filet mignon, shrimp, an assortment of vegetables, salad, and rolls with lots of whipped butter.

'This is pretty good,' said the kid.

'Pretty good? This is a feast!' said Tristan. 'Eat up! We'll need our strength to capture dessert.'

He saw a trace of a smile, then it disappeared.

'Who're you in trouble with?' the boy wanted to know.

Tristan chewed for a moment. 'It's the caterer, Monsieur Pompideau. I was working for him and spilled some things. You know, I wet a few people's pants.'

The boy smiled, a bigger smile this time. 'Did you get Mr. Lever?'

'Should I have aimed for him?' Tristan asked.

The kid nodded, his face brightened considerably by this thought.

'Anyway, Pompideau told me to stick to things that didn't spill. Imagine that.'

'You know what I'd tell him?' said the kid. The pucker in his brow was gone. He was gulping down food and talking with his mouth full. He looked about a hundred times better than he had fifteen minutes earlier.

'What?'

'I'd tell him: Stick it in your ear!'

'Good idea!' said Tristan. He picked up a piece of celery. 'Stick it in your ear, Pompideau.'

The kid laughed out loud, and Tristan wedged in the stalk.

'Stick it in your other ear, Pompideau!' the kid commanded.

Tristan snatched up another piece of celery.

'Stick it in your hair, Dippity-doo!' the boy crowed, carried away with the game.

Tristan took a handful of shredded salad and dropped it on his head. Too late he realized the greens were covered with vinaigrette.

The kid threw back his head and laughed. 'Stick it in your nose, Doo-be-doo!'

Well, why not? Tristan thought. He had been eight years old once, and remembered how funny noses and boogers seemed to little boys. He found two shrimp tails and stuck them in, their pink fins flaring out of his nostrils.

The kid was falling off his box laughing. 'Stick it in your teeth, Doo-be-doo!'

Two black olives worked well, each stuck on a tooth, so he had two black incisors.

'Stick it in-' Tristan was busy adjusting his celery and shrimp tails. He hadn't noticed how the crack of light had widened. He didn't see the kid's face change. 'Stick it where, Doo-be-doo?'

Then Tristan looked up.

Chapter 3

Ivy froze. She was stunned by the sight of Tristan, celery stuck in his ears, salad shreds in his hair, something squishy and black on his teeth, and-hard as it was to believe that someone older than eight would do this-shrimp tails sticking out of his nose.

Tristan looked just as stunned to see her.

'Am I in trouble?' Philip asked.

'I think I am,' Tristan said softly.

'You're supposed to be in the dining room, eating with us,' Ivy told Philip.

'We're eating in here. We're having a feast.'

She looked at the assortment of food piled on the plates between them, and one side of her mouth curled up.

'Please, Ivy, Mom said we could bring any friends we wanted to the wedding.'

'And you told her you didn't have any, remember? You said you didn't have one friend in Stonehill.'

'I do now.'

Ivy looked at Tristan. He was careful to keep his eyes down, concentrating on the celery, shrimp, and squashed black olives, lining them up on the box in front of him. Disgusting.

'Mademoiselle!'

'It's Doo-be-doo!' cried Philip. 'Close the door! Please, Ivy!'

Against her better judgment, she did, for strange as it seemed, her brother looked happier than he had in weeks. With her back to the storeroom, Ivy faced the caterer.

'Is something wrong, mademoiselle?'

'No, sir.'

'Are you tres certaine?'

'Tres,' she replied, taking Monsieur Pompideau's arm and walking him away from the door.

'Well, you are wanted in the dining room,' he said crisply. 'It is time for the toast. Everyone is waiting.'

Ivy hurried out. They were indeed waiting, and she couldn't avoid an entrance. Ivy blushed as she crossed the room. Gregory pulled her toward him, laughing. Then he handed her a champagne glass.

A friend of Andrew's made the toast. It went on and on.

'Hear, hear,' all the guests cried out at last.

'Hear, hear, sister!' Gregory said, and drank down the contents of the glass. He held it out to be filled again.

Ivy took a small sip from hers.

'Here, here, sister,' he said again, but low and soft this time, his eyes burning with a strange light. He clinked his glass against hers and downed the champagne once more.

Then he pulled Ivy to him, so close she couldn't breathe, and kissed her hard on the mouth.

Ivy sat at her piano, staring at the same measures of music she had opened to five minutes before, one hand resting lightly on her lips. She dropped her hand down to the yellowed keys and ran her fingers over them, eliciting ripples of music, not quite in tune. Then she ran her tongue over her lips. They weren't really bruised; it was all in her mind.

Still, she was glad that she had talked her mother into letting Philip and her stay in their apartment until after the honeymoon. Six days alone with Gregory in that huge house on the ridge was more than she could face, especially with Philip acting up.

Philip, who in their crowded Norwalk apartment had rigged up old curtains around his bed because he wanted to be away from 'the girls,' had been begging to sleep with her for the past two weeks. The night before the wedding she had let him bring his sleeping bag into her room.

She had awakened to find him and Ella the cat on top of her. After their long day at the wedding, she'd probably let him sleep in her room again that night.

He was on the floor behind her, playing with his baseball cards, arranging dream teams on the scatter rug. As usual, Ella wanted to stretch out in the middle of the baseball diamond. The pitcher rode on her black belly, up and down. Every once in a while, a soft phrase would escape Philip. 'Fly ball deep to center field,' he'd whisper, then Don Mattingly would make his home-run trot around the bases.

I shouldn't let him stay up this late, Ivy thought. But she herself couldn't sleep, and she was glad for his company. Besides, Philip had eaten such a conglomeration of party food, and so many sweets on top of that-thanks to Tristan-he'd probably throw up all over his sleeping bag. And clean sheets, like most everything else in their apartment, were packed.

'Ivy, I decided,' Philip said suddenly. 'I'm not going to move.'

'What?' She lifted her legs and spun around on the piano bench.

'I'm staying here. Do you and Ella want to stay with me?'

'And what about Mom?'

'She can be Gregory's mother now,' Philip said.

Ivy winced, the way she did each time her mother made a fuss over Gregory. Maggie was warmhearted and affectionate-and trying hard, much too hard. She had no idea how ridiculous Gregory found her.