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were planning to be gone overnight. This meant that after her brother went to bed, Cicely and Ian would be just like married people, all alone downstairs ormaybe even upstairs in her bedroom with the door locked. They didn’t discuss the possibilities in so many words, but Ian got the feeling that Cicely was aware of them. She said maybe he’d like to come over about eight thirty or so. (Stevie’s bedtime was eight.) She wanted to cook him a really elegant dinner, she said. They would have candles, just like Lucy. Maybe Ian could dress up a little. Maybe get hold of a bottle of wine.
    He preferred the taste of beer himself, but he would certainly bring wine, and also flowers. He wasn’t so keen on dressing up but he would do that too, if she wanted. Anything. Anything. Would she let him stay the whole night? It didn’t seem the right moment to ask. They were sitting in the school cafeteria with accordion-pleated drinking-straw wrappers whizzing around their heads.
    Saturday morning he slept till noon, and as soon as he woke he phoned Cicely to see what color wine she wanted. “What
color
?” she said, sounding hurried. “Any color; I don’t care.”
    “But aren’t you supposed to—?”
    “I have to go,” she said. “Something’s boiling over.”
    After he’d hung up he realized he should have asked about the flowers, too—what color flowers. Or was it only with corsages that the color mattered? This was a meal, not a prom dress. Oh, everything was all so new to him, all on a larger scale than he was used to. He worried he wouldn’t know precisely what to do with her. He wished Danny were around. The only person in the house was his mother, and she was in one of her cleaning frenzies. She didn’t even offer him lunch. He had to make his own—three peanut butter sandwiches and a quart of milk, which he drank directly from the carton when his mother wasn’t looking.
    In the afternoon he and Andrew went over to PigBenson’s house and played Ping-Pong.
Tick-tock, tick-tock
, the ball went, while Ian considered dropping a hint about tonight. Or would that be bragging? Danny had once told him that girls hate boys who kiss and tell. Also, it was possible that Pig and Andrew might do something juvenile like shine flashlights in Cicely’s windows or lean on the doorbell and then run. It was
very
possible. Look at them: scuffling around the Ping-Pong table all gawky and unkempt and wild, acting years and years younger than Ian.
    Although at the same time, there was something enviable about them.
    When he reached home, his mother was standing in front of the hall mirror in her best dress, screwing on her earrings. “Oh! Ian!” she said. “I thought you’d never get here.”
    “What’s up?”
    “You’re supposed to head over to Lucy’s right away. She needs you to baby-sit.”
    “Baby-sit? I can’t baby-sit! I’ve got a date.”
    “Well, I’m sure she won’t be long; she’s just meeting a friend for a drink, she says. Danny’s at a stag party. Goodness, look at the time, and your father’s not even—”
    “Mom,” Ian said, following her into the living room, “you had no business volunteering me to baby-sit. I’ve got plans of my own, and besides I think I might spend the night at Pig’s. You have way, way overstepped, Mom. And another thing. This Lucy, calling up the minute Danny’s back is turned—”
    “Back is turned! What are you talking about? It’s Bucky Hargrove’s stag party; Bucky’s getting married next week.”
    She was plumping cushions and collecting sections of the evening paper. Her high heels gave her an unaccustomed, stalking gait, and Ian could tell she waswearing her girdle; she inhabited her dress in such a condensed manner. She stooped stiffly for a dog bone and said, “Not that I approve of such things: bunch of grown men telling dirty jokes together. So that’s why I said to Lucy, ‘Why, of course you should get out! Ian would be glad to sit!’ I said. And