She waved me off like she wasn’t going to play as I worked my gimpy self out from behind the piano.
“Forget it, Ivy. You promised.” Before she could move I slipped my hands under her arms and picked her up. She half-shrieked in surprise. She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten. My right arm didn’t hold up quite as well as my left, but it was enough to get her over to the bench. I sort-of dropped her in place, then leaned forward to speak in her ear. “A deal’s a deal.”
She was laughing as she turned toward me. “Okay, okay.” Suddenly, we were in a reversal of that moment a few weeks before: Faces frozen, inches apart. Though it was oddly the same, everything was different. I was different.
Her lips were partly open and I leaned forward before I could talk myself out it. I felt her warm breath before I crushed my lips to hers. I slipped my hand behind her head, the silky strands of her hair pouring through my fingers like liquid black gold. Her lips were as sweet and tantalizing as the scent of plumeria that I always seemed to smell when I was around her. I kissed her in a way that didn’t leave any doubt about how I felt. And damn if she didn’t kiss me back.
I pulled back. “Okay?” I asked softly.
She nodded, her lips still parted, tempting me, but her eyes were wide and shocked. “Okay,” she whispered.
I sat down in my chair and she hurriedly swung around to face the piano. It was the first time I’d ever heard Ivy mess up a note while she was playing. Her cheeks stayed pink for the rest of the class and it was obvious she was avoiding looking at me. It made me want to laugh out loud and pump my fist in the air. The last time I’d felt like this was when I’d thrown that floating pass to Dillon to win the Homecoming Dance. I hadn’t believed I could ever feel like this again.
OLLIE USUALLY GAVE me a ride home after school. When I told him I was going to go study at the Java Hut with Ivy and Mira he just gave me that slow nod and a fist bump. “Cool.”
A couple of guys were throwing a football around the parking lot when we walked out to Mira’s car. A pang went through me as I watched the football sail past my head. I could’ve easily reached my left hand up and caught it. It was the throw back that would’ve been a problem.
“Jefferson’s over here,” Mira chirped.
“You named your car?” I asked, though with Mira it really would have been more surprising if she hadn’t named her car.
“Jefferson Christopher Beetle.” Ivy and Mira said it at the same time and started laughing. I liked being with Ivy when she was around Mira. It was like getting a glimpse into her secret world. I was surprised to find that I wanted my own personal key.
Luckily, Ivy climbed in the miniature back seat while I tried to cram myself into the miniature front seat. I swear my head was brushing the ceiling. Mira started the engine—which sounded like a little wind-up toy—and jerked the car so bad when she shifted into second gear that I bumped my head against the window.
“Sorry about that,” she said, giving me a guilty look. “I have a little trouble with the clutch when I’m shifting.” I glanced behind me. Ivy was collapsed on her side in a fit of giggles in the back seat. I’d never heard her laugh so hard.
“Yeah. Thanks for the warning.” I reached for the screamer strap and braced myself. Damn. I was definitely going to have to work on getting my parents to let me have my truck back.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ivy
I was a bundle of nerves at the Java Hut. I was trying to be cool, no big deal, but every time I looked up Q was watching me with those crazy blues. I tried to pretend the kiss hadn’t happened but instant replay was on a constant loop in my head. The sweet taste of cherry coke, the way his lips had covered mine, like he couldn’t help himself; the feel of his fingers threaded through my hair, so gentle, pulling me closer. I’d been definitely been kissed and sadly, I loved it. Then I’d look at Mira and guilt practically squeezed the air out of my lungs.
MIRA DROPPED ME OFF first after the Java Hut, as it turned out Kellen lived in Springwood too. So it had been him standing on the corner the night of Sadie Hawkins. I knew Mira would Skype me as soon as she got home to talk about Q, but I couldn’t do it. I needed time alone to process. To figure out what I was going to do.
My mother wasn’t home from work yet so I dropped my backpack on the floor by the kitchen table and ran upstairs to my room. I threw myself on the bed and buried my face in the pile of colorful pillows. Sliding my arms around their silky fabric, I kicked my legs and screamed. HE KISSED ME!
I so totally wasn’t expecting it that when he’d leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine, it had taken me a second to react. But then it had been like a flood of sensations had swallowed me. His lips were so soft, yet demanding, just like they said in all those terrible romance novels. When he’d put his hand in my hair and crushed his lips against mine—I had to kiss him back. I wanted to kiss him back. So many things I’d never felt before poured through me, filling me up so full—yet making me hungry for more. I was so confused.
Now I knew what it meant to be kissed. Really kissed. I thought of when Brandon had pressed his lips against mine and I started giggling. Two kisses couldn’t be farther apart. The next thing I knew I was crying. Why had Q kissed me? Mira had dibs on him and I liked Brandon, didn’t I?
I rolled over and covered my face with my hands and sobbed like a little girl with a broken heart.
BY EVENING I’D gotten it together again. I didn’t know why Q kissed me but we were just friends. It wouldn’t happen again. He texted me that night about some inconsequential thing in math. I debated about not answering but decided it would be childish to ignore him. I sent him a quick reply then told him I had to go some place with my parents and I’d see him tomorrow. I could just be friends with him. Everything would be fine.
THE DAY AFTER ‘The Kiss’ I made a point of mentioning Brandon a few times during study hall. Mira was gone to a drama meeting about a play they were putting on and it was just Q and me at our table.
He had his math book open and was working on the assignment while I worked on my trig homework.
“I guess Brandon applied to the San Francisco Conservatory,” I said, like I thought Q might find that to be a fascinating bit of news. What a joke. The guy probably didn’t even know who Brandon Chang was.
Q paused and lifted his head. “The cello guy?”
I blinked in surprise. “Yeah.”
He chewed on the end of his pencil while he stared at me with an inscrutable expression. I tried to ignore him but finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I put my pencil down and stared back.
“Okay, what?”
“Have you been going out with him for a while?”
My mouth opened and closed a few times like a fish out of water. “I..I’ve known him a long time,” I finally stuttered.
“That wasn’t what I asked, Ivy.”
My cheeks started to heat up. “Uh, no.” I couldn’t lie. “Not really.”
Q’s lips quirked in a lazy grin. “Good.” Then he went back to work on his math.
I wanted to ask him what that meant but I didn’t dare. The rest of study hall Q was his normal friendly self. He acted like the kiss had never happened at all. I wasn’t totally sure how I felt about that.
THAT NIGHT Q called me. I stared at the phone as it buzzed in my hand debating what the correct course of action would be: Take the call and acknowledge our friendship, which really meant I might be acknowledging what was happening behind the scenes, or ignore it and hide like the chicken shit I was.
“Hello?” I couldn’t help myself.
“Hey Ivy.” His voice sounded lower on the phone. “Sorry to bother you after school but I wondered if you could help me for a few minutes on these French translations. They’re kickin’ my butt.” He sounded really tired.
“Did you go to physical therapy today?” I don’t know where that came from, but I did want to know. I felt sorry for him. He worked so hard to get better.
“Y
eah.” He chuckled into the phone. “Michael, my PT, likes to push me, which translated into English means he’s a total masochist and exercises the shit out of me. I’m just about dead when I get home.”
“But you’re improving,” I said. “I can see how much better you’re walking now and I know your fingers are more flexible because your piano playing has improved a lot.” Somehow it was easier to say those things when he wasn’t in the room with me.
There was a hiccup of silence, then: “Thanks Ivy. That means a lot coming from you.”
My heart skipped a beat. “So—” I tried to sound light and breezy but my heart was racing inside my chest— “what do you need help with in French?”
He went over the areas where he was having trouble—some conjugations and sentence conversions. It only took me about ten minutes to walk him through it.
“How do you know so much about French, Ivy?” Q asked when I’d finished explaining. “Do languages just come easy to you?”
I laughed. “I don’t know. I’ve always been sort of obsessed with France. I love the country, I love the history, I’ve always wanted to visit Paris.” I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see me. “So I’ve studied extra hard to learn to speak French.”
“Yeah, I liked Paris. It’s a very cool city.”
I blinked in surprise. “Wait a minute. You’ve been there?”
“Yeah. A family trip.”
“Oh my God, Q!” I couldn’t believe it. His cool factor just went up by about twenty points. “Tell me all about it!”
He laughed again, low and sexy. “Can’t do it on the phone, Ivy Ly.” He sounded regretful. “There’s a price for knowledge, you know. But I will tell you this: I’ve eaten lunch in the restaurant halfway up the Eiffel Tower and been to the Louvre and seen Jim Morrison’s grave….” He sighed. “So many details….”
“Stop it—” I groaned— “you’re killing me! What’s the price?”
I swear I could see him grinning through the phone.
“Go out to dinner with me.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise.
“How about this Saturday?”
I panicked. I couldn’t possibly go to dinner with Q—Mira would freak. “I..I can’t this Saturday. I’ve got to practice for a concert and….” Q cut me off.
“It’s no problem. We’ll do it another time.”
“Okay.” I searched desperately for a compromise. “Can you just tell me a few things?” I was not good at bargaining. Evidenced by the fact I still hadn’t told my parents I wanted to study music. “Like, did you go inside the Louvre?”
“Yep. I saw the two triangles, you know—like from the Da Vinci Code? The top pyramid is huge and made of glass. It’s really cool how it juts down out of the ceiling and is suspended above the smaller bottom pyramid, which is stone.”
I sighed with longing. “And did you ride a riverboat on the Seine? And—”
“Gotta pay to play, Ivy. Just a simple dinner and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” He laughed. “Listen, I’ve gotta run. Thanks for the help. Au revoir.”
Q DIDN’T MENTION Paris the next day and I didn’t bring it up either. Though I tried to convince myself otherwise, it felt like I was treading on quicksand. But I was also dying of curiosity. Q walking the streets of Paris. Somehow that wasn’t difficult to imagine.
Mira was back in study hall with us and chattered away about the upcoming play which was entitled ‘Bah, Humbug!’ —a take on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. She was playing the part of the ghost of Christmas Past and was describing her costume in great detail.
Every once in a while Q would look over and smile, teasing me with an ‘I’ve got a secret’ look before Mira would ask him a question, forcing his attention back to her.
OUR DAYS FELL into an easy rhythm as Christmas approached. Q, Mira and I spent third period in French and sixth period in study hall together. Q had physical therapy after school every day. The one day we’d gone to the Java Hut his therapist had been out. Mira seemed to be falling harder for him. I’d stopped talking to her as often because I couldn’t stand to listen to her go on and on about him. It made my stomach ache and my heart hurt. Which totally sucked, because if there was ever a time I needed a best friend, it was now.
Q was definitely getting better. His handwriting was improving, as was his memory. He was almost caught up in his classes and I knew that he wouldn’t need my help much after the Christmas break. Which should have been a huge relief.
I practiced like crazy on my piano for the Christmas concert. I was playing the showcase piece for the youth symphony again, but this would be for an even bigger crowd, so that much more pressure. The piano was the one place where I could lose the voices in my head that tormented me all the time. I don’t know what I felt for Q, but if this was love, I didn’t want it. Not under these circumstances.
Chapter Thirty
Kellen
There was only one week left of school before the Christmas holidays. I was oddly conflicted about it. Two weeks without homework sounded awesome. Two weeks without Ivy didn’t.
I straightened my tie in the mirror. The white silk was a stark contrast to the black shirt and jacket I wore over a pair of dark jeans. I smiled at myself. My lips only had a slight drag down on the right now. Barely noticeable. Almost normal.
My right hand was still messed up, but it was improving. I picked up the football sitting on the nearby dresser with my left hand and held the ball while I stretched the fingers of my right hand around the pebbly leather. I gripped the ball and cocked it over my shoulder, then I turned and threw it at my bed. More spiral than wobble. There was hope.
The chimes of the doorbell rang through the house. I hurried down the stairs in the rambling hop-skip movement I’d developed to favor my right foot but my mom still got to the door before me. I think she’d been sitting there waiting to see who could have possibly coerced me into this deviant behavior. When I’d told her I was going to a youth symphony concert she hadn’t believe me at first.
“That’s funny, Kellen. If your sister had told me that, I’d believe it, but you—not so much.”
My sister, Julie, was a major music geek, which was my way of saying she was a music major. She played the violin and had always been going to this symphony or playing in that concert when she was in middle school and high school. For a kid who loved football and sports it had been excruciatingly painful for me to sit through all the boringness. When she left for college I swore I would never go to another one.
From the middle of the stairs I could see my mom open the door. Her back went rigid as she considered the girl before her. Standing on the porch, illuminated in a pool of light, Mira stood in a one-shoulder black and white zebra-striped dress. Her bright red lips were hardly noticeable because her hair was striped black and white too. Her hands were covered with black silk fingerless gloves, and she twirled a mask that was attached to a stick.
“Ah, h..hello,” my mom stuttered.
“Hi,” Mira said in a perky voice. “I’m here for Kellen.”
“Hi Mira,” I called as I hopped the last few steps. I put my arm around my mom’s shoulder. “Mom, this is Mira Stouffer, Mira this is my mom, Jane.”
Mira put her mask up to her face and peered at us through the oval eye slits. The mask was zebra striped as well, with red rhinestones around the eyes and running down the nose.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that masks were more of a Mardi Gras thing than a symphony concert thing.
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
“Right, then.” I stifled a chuckle. I was enjoying myself more than I probably should have been. “Gotta go.” I kissed my mom on the cheek, ignoring her partially opened mouth. I grabbed the bouquet of red roses that I’d left on the entry table. “I’ll be back before midnight.”
“Bye.” Mira fluttered her fingers at my mom, who still stood gaping, and headed back to her car.
“Mom.” I pointed to my chi
n. “Your mouth.” She snapped her mouth closed.
She glanced at Mira’s departing back and whispered to me: “Kellen Michael Peterson – don’t tell me that’s your girlfriend?”
I smiled at her. “I’m trying to expand my horizons, Mom.” Then I closed the door behind me and followed Mira to Jefferson. I only bumped my head on the window once on the ride to the concert hall.
IVY DIDN’T KNOW I was coming to her concert tonight. Mira had invited me.
“I thought maybe you’d like to see what she does for fun,” Mira had quipped. I think she was surprised by how fast I said yes.
“That’s a nice touch,” Mira said, nodding at the roses. “Who are they for?” I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not.
“Uh, well, Ivy—” I tried to hide my embarrassment—did she think I’d gotten them for her? “I figured flowers would be safe.” I didn’t dare admit how long it had taken me to choose just the exactly right ‘safe’ thing. I tucked the flowers on the floor under my seat.
I recognized a few kids from school in the crowd, mostly orchestra geeks, as I escorted Mira in to sit down. I tried to ignore the stares as people did double-takes at Mira’s outfit. Somehow standing on my porch freaking my mom out had been kind of funny. Being seen as Mira’s “date” at this concert was something different. The idea of fleeing before I was seen entered my mind. But I was here for Ivy, not Mira, so I gritted my teeth and pretended I couldn’t hear the whispers.
The concert hall was really a beautiful old church, with soaring ceilings and an ornate balcony that wrapped around the room. Mira pointed out people she knew.
“There’s Mr. and Mrs. Ly.”
I glanced over curiously. I could see Ivy’s features in her mother’s elegant face. We had seats in the center with a good view of the stage. I pointed toward the cello section. “Is that Brandon Chang?”
Mira leaned close to me. “Oh yes. He and Ivy have played in orchestras together since fourth grade, I think. They’ve known each other forever.” She barely took a breath. “He used to date Jenny McNamara but they broke up right after Homecoming.” She nudged my elbow. “I think he saw Ivy in her Cinderella dress that night at the dance and fell in love with her. She was so beautiful.” Mira had a dreamy smile on her face. Then she sobered. “That was until you puked on her.”
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