Ivy of Our Hearts

Eleven

I sat, my knee pressed against Margaret's, the both of us staring up at Phillip, waiting. I had a feeling that we watched him for different reasons. I couldn't say for sure what Margaret saw, but I reminded myself that the best way to conquer anything was to look it in the eye. I watched him, not with a glimmer in my eyes like Margaret, but with hope that he'd see that I, too, could burn like the stars as he could. 

I could burn him if I wanted to.

He clasped his hands behind his head, lifted his chin, and closed his eyes. As he did, the rain slowed to a trickle, the drumming against the windows stopped. It happened so fast you'd have had to be listening to notice. I noticed a second too late, so for me it had been a trick of my ears, an auditory mirage. He took his time to open his eyes, but when they did open, like curtains being wrenched apart; I sank back into my seat.

Margaret leaned forward, the glimmer in her eyes intensified. I'd never seen her watch anyone that way, not even her own brother, not even the boys in school she'd kissed, and there had been many, but none I knew had been as enthralling as Phillip.

He blew onto his hands and rubbed them together as if to warm them. "The theme is movies," he said. He held up his finger. "Animated movies."

Margaret nodded, but when she saw my chilled expression she sunk back into her seat.

"I'm ready." Phillip rubbed his hands together some more.

"How many words?" Margaret asked.

He held up a finger.

"Syllables?"

He held up two fingers.

Margaret tapped her cheek, as she often did whenever she was amused.

Phillip grinned, not with that same half smile, but with one that made Margaret lean forward again, chin resting in her palms, and the glimmer back in her eyes.

Phillip positioned his arms as if he was holding a baby. He rocked the baby and kissed the top of its head.

Margaret sat up straight. "A baby."

Phillip held up his thumb.

Margaret smiled. I watched her, the way she watched him. If I'd finished my sandwich maybe my stomach would have boiled from resentment at how high-strung I was, while Margaret had made herself at home, amidst the books and the chipped mugs and the boy who'd taken us in. Even the trees spoke his name.

Phillip puffed out his chest and beat his fists against it.

"A gorilla," Margaret said.

He nodded, grinning with those radiant whites, like he kept the moon hidden somewhere behind his teeth. Margaret grinned back. She didn't mind the glare of them.

He bent down onto his fists, stuck out his jaw, and grunted like an ape.

Margaret snapped her fingers. "King Kong," she said. But she said it with a question mark on the end.

If I wanted to talk, I would have said, "Come on, Margaret. King Kong isn't animated. You know that." But I didn't want to talk.

Phillip slapped his forehead and shook his head. He made more gorilla noises, slammed his fists down onto the table, and sniffed the air.

I dipped my head, unable to keep my chilled expression from melting as he strode around the room on his knuckles. His bared teeth nipped the air.

Margaret scratched her head. The glimmer in her eyes sizzled and sparked. Maybe she, too, during some brief exchange, had felt what I'd felt. A star beneath her skin.

"I don't know," she said. "Another clue."

I already knew the answer. Margaret should have known. It fit, given our location. I imagined shouting it out, like a sycophant child, but I didn't. I kept my head bowed.

Phillip, still on his fists, came over to us. He stopped in front of me, grunting like a gorilla, telling me something I couldn't know because I didn't speak ape. I lifted my chin. I had no power over the stars, I couldn't make them bloom, but my mother had made sure I knew I had a place among them, the supernovas, the ones who never had to burn to prove their worth. I held his gaze.

He pressed his fingers against my hand, a touch so faint I wouldn't have felt it if I hadn't seen him do it. I curled my fingers into a fist and thought of water, not the inky blue beneath his lashes, but icy, glacial, the kind that could freeze time.

He picked up my hand and slipped his fingers beneath mine, so I no longer made a fist. He pressed his palm against my own. We stayed like that for two heartbeats too long, palm to palm, one pulse beating wilder than the other but still human. I wrenched my hand away, slipping it underneath the extra fabric of my sleeve.

He frowned and went to Margaret, so close the tips of their noses almost touched. He took her face in both of his hands and squeezed her cheeks. "I still don't know," she said between puckered lips. He let go and came back to me.

Before he could touch me again, I murmured, "Tarzan."

Margaret got up next for her turn. I gave in to the game as she acted out her clues, each one more ridiculous than the last.

"The woods," I said.

"A bear," Phillip said.

I thought I'd get it right away, but as she rubbed her belly and scooped an invisible substance into her mouth, Phillip said, "Winnie the Pooh," before I could.

Margaret laughed. She virtually high-fived him. When the giggles died down, the rain resumed its drumming against the windows. Margaret, with her hands on her hips, and still breathless from laughing, asked, "Ivy, do you want to have a go?"

"I want to watch," I said.

The two of them took several more turns at the game, until the high we all got from it faded into coughs, sighs, then silence. By then, nothing could be seen out of the windows. Not even the brightest star could shine through those storm clouds. I took that as my cue to leave. "I'm tired," I said, in place of goodnight and slipped away to the bedroom.

I didn't sleep. I couldn't, not even when Margaret got in beside me. I'd found my backpack and boots tucked away in a corner of the room. I'd moved them closer to the door, so they'd be easier to grab in the morning. "How could he have known where we were?" I asked. I held my cell phone to my chest. The battery was dead, but I held onto it as if it weren't, as if a call would come any minute now.

Margaret rolled over onto her back, yawning. "He didn't say," she said.

"How convenient for him," I said. "At least tomorrow we won't have to see him ever again." At least I would no longer have to pretend that my heart didn't yearn for him.

She didn't answer right away. I thought she'd fallen asleep, then she said, in a breathy sort of way, "He could have been worse, Ivy."

I moved onto my side towards the door, as the glow underneath it went out. "Be careful, Margaret," I said. "Some boys take hold of your heart and never let go."

By then, she'd already fallen asleep, so I answered as she would.

"Maybe that's why hearts are kept so caged up, to make them harder to take."