Элизабет Чандлер: Kissed by an Angel

"Good," Tristan said vaguely. He wished she'd leave him alone now. All he wanted was to be alone, to revel in the sight of Ivy, Ivy stepping out onto the porch, Ivy with her hair blowing gold as she gracefully moved to the top of the steps and picked up Ella.

"The director said my kind of talent was to die for."

"Great," said Tristan. If only cats could talk, he thought. Tell her, Ella, tell her what you know.

"The producer, a major artsy-fartsy, said he wanted someone who had a 'more classic' face, someone with a voice that wouldn't lapse into New Yorkese."

Ivy was still standing on the porch, cuddling Ella and looking toward him. Maybe she did believe, Tristan thought. Maybe she had a faint sense of his presence.

"That producer is in New York for a couple of weeks, getting a road show ready. I thought I'd pay him a visit."

"Great," Tristan repeated. He turned his head when Ivy did, hearing the whine of a small car climbing to the top of the hill.

"I thought I'd murder him," Lacey added, "cause a traffic accident that would kill him on the spot."

"Terrific."

"You're pathetic!" she said. "You're really pathetic! Were you this gaga in life? I can only imagine you when you still had hormones pumping through you."

He turned to her angrily. "Look," he said, "you're no better than I am. I'm in love with Ivy, you're in love with you. We're both obsessed, so back off."

For a moment Lacey didn't say anything. Her eyes changed ever so slightly. A camera would not have caught the flicker of hurt feelings. But Tristan did, and knowing that this time she wasn't acting, he regretted his words.

"I'm sorry."

Lacey had turned away from him. He figured she'd be off anytime now, leaving him to fumble his way through his mission.

"Lacey, I'm sorry."

"Well, well, well," she said.

"It's just that-" "Who is this?" she interrupted him. "Tweedledee and Tweedledum come to mourn with your lady?"

He turned to watch Beth and Suzanne get out of the car. As it happened, they were both wearing black, but Suzanne had always liked black, especially scanty black, which was what she was wearing-a cool halter-top dress. Beth, on the other hand, was wearing clothes typical of Beth: a loose shift, black with small white flowers on it, whose ruffled hem blew a couple of inches above her red plastic sandals.

"They're her friends, Beth and Suzanne."

"That one is definitely a radio," said Lacey.

"A radio?"

"The one who looks like she's wearing a shower curtain."

"Beth," he said. "She's a writer."

"What'd I tell you? A born radio."

Tristan watched Ivy greet her friends and lead them into the house.

"Let's go," Lacey said, springing forward. "This is going to be fun."

He hung back. He had seen her kind of fun earlier.

"Do you want to tell her you love her, or don't you? This will be good training for you, Tristan.

You've got it made, the girl's an absolute radio. Good radios don't even have to believe," she added. "They are receptive to all kinds of things, one of those things being angels. You can speak through her-at least, you can write through her. You know what automatic writing is, don't you?"

He had heard of it. Mediums did it, their hands supposedly writing at the will of someone else, relaying messages from the dead.

"You mean Beth is like a medium?"

"An untrained one. A natural radio. She'll broadcast you-if not today, then tomorrow. We've just got to establish the link and slip into her mind."

"Slip into her mind?" he asked.

"It's pretty simple," Lacey said. "All you need to do is think exactly like her, see the world the way Beth sees it, feel as Beth feels, love whomever she loves, desire her deepest desires."

"No way," said Tristan.

"In short, you have to adopt the radio's point of view, and then you slip right in."

"You obviously don't know the way Beth's mind works," said Tristan. "You've never seen her stories. She writes these torrid romances."

"Oh… you mean the kind where the lover stares longingly at his beloved, his eyes soulful, his heart aching so that he cannot see or hear anyone else?"

"Exactly."

She tilted back her head and smirked. "You're right. You and Beth are certainly different."

Tristan didn't say anything.

"If you really loved Ivy, you'd try. I'm sure the lovers in Beth's stories wouldn't let a little challenge like this stop them."

"How about Philip?" said Tristan. "He's Ivy's brother. And he can see me shimmering."

"Ah! You've found a believer," she said.

"A radio, I'm sure," Tristan told her.

"Not necessarily. There's no real connection between believing and being a radio."

"Can't we try him first?"

"Sure, we can waste time," she said, and slipped inside the house.

Philip was in the kitchen making microwave brownies. On the counter next to his bowl were a few sticky baseball cards and a catalogue opened to a picture of kids' mountain bikes. Tristan was confident. This was a point of view he knew well.

"Stay behind him," Lacey advised. "If he notices your glow, it will distract him. He'll start searching and trying to understand. He'll focus outward so hard that he won't be open to letting anything else in."

Actually, staying behind Philip helped in other ways. Tristan read the box directions over Philip's shoulder. He thought about what step he should do next and how the brownies would smell as they baked, how they would taste, warm and crumbly, just out of the oven. He wanted to lick the spoon, with its raw, runny chocolate. Philip did lick it.

Tristan knew who he was, and at the same time he was someone else too, the way he'd felt sometimes when reading a good story. This was easy. "Philip, it's me-" Wham! Tristan reeled backward, as if he had walked into a glass wall. He hadn't seen it, had been totally unaware of it, till it slammed him in the face. For a few moments, he was stunned.

"It can get pretty rough sometimes," Lacey said, observing him. "I guess it's clear to you now.

Philip doesn't want you in."

"But I was his friend."

"He doesn't know it's you."

"If he'd let me talk to him, then he would know," Tristan argued.

"It doesn't work that way," she said. "I warned you. I'm getting good at telling radios from non-radios. You can try him again, but he'll be ready for you this time, and it will be even tougher. You don't want a radio who fights you. Let's try Beth."

Tristan paced around. "Why don't you try Beth?"

"Sorry."

"But"-he thought fast-"you're such a great actress, Lacey. That's why this kind of thing comes easily to you. An actress's job is to take on a role. The really great ones, like you, don't just imitate. No, they become the other person. That's why you do it so well."

"Nice try," she said. "But Beth is your radio to the one you're messaging. You have to do it yourself. That's just the way it works."

"It never seems to work the way I want it to," he complained.

"You've noticed that too," she remarked. "I assume you know how to get up to your lady's bower."

Tristan led the way to Ivy's bedroom. The door was open a crack. Ella, who was still following them, nudged it open and entered; they passed through the walls.

Suzanne was sitting in front of Ivy's mirror, rifling through an open jewelry box, trying on Ivy's necklaces and earrings. Ivy was sprawled out on her bed, reading a sheaf of papers-one of Beth's stories, Tristan figured. Beth was pacing around the room.

"At least get yourself a jewel-encrusted pencil," Suzanne said, "if you're going to continue to wear it in your hair like that."

Beth reached up to the knot of hair wound high on her head and plucked out a pencil. "I forgot."

"You're getting worse and worse, Beth."