"Boy, what's with you this morning?" Katie asked. "Get up on the wrong side of the new year?"

"No, I'm sorry. Forget everything I said. Let's start over." Christy changed her voice to a brighter tone. "Oh Katie, hi! I'm glad we found you. How's it going?"

Katie gave Christy a questioning look, "Rick wanted to wait until you guys arrived before we went looking for the rest of the group since this is the street corner Doug told him to wait on."

Rick and Doug, their arms loaded with Rick and Katie's stuff, joined the two girls. Rick handed Katie her backpack and blanket.

"Ready to go on safari?" Doug asked. "Trie rest of the group has to be around here somewhere."

Feeling like a refugee, Christy fell in step behind Doug, and Katie did the same behind Rick. The guys led them out into the street, where it was much easier to walk without obstacles.

"I feel like people are looking at us as if we're part of the parade," Christy said to Katie. "I hope we find the rest of the group soon. This stuff is getting heavy."

"Look over there." Katie pointed across the street to a guy setting up a television camera on an adjustable metal platform.

"Hi, Mom," Katie called out, waving to the camera. "Happy New Year!"

Then, liking the idea of being in the middle of the parade route much more than Christy did, Katie started to goof off, waving to the little kids who lined the curbs.

"Good morning, little friends!" she said in her elf voice. "Rise and shine. The big parade is coming soon!"

"Stop it," Christy said in a mock scold. "They're starting to wave at you. They think you're part of the parade."

Katie laughed and waved back. "You've got to take your fans where you can find them!"

Then they heard someone calling, "Hey, Christy! Doug! Over here."

The foursome crossed the street as they spotted Heather and Tracy standing and waving at them. A group of about a dozen people Christy knew from previous beach gatherings was camped out beside the street. For the next ten minutes, there was a flurry of hugs, introductions, and explanations.

Once they settled in and wedged their blankets into the s.p.a.ce available, Christy plopped herself down next to Tracy, "I feel like a pioneer woman who just made a six-month trek to California. Somehow this whole Rose Parade was a lot more glamorous from the comfort of my living room couch."

"So?" Tracy asked. "Did you talk to Rick yet?"

Before Christy could answer, Rick, who they didn't realize was standing behind them, stuck his head between them and asked, "Did I hear someone mention my name?"

"Oh!" Tracy said, startled.

She looked at Christy and then at Rick, "I was asking Christy if you two had a chance to talk yet."

Christy turned her head away from Rick.

"I don't know," Rick said. "Have we had our talk yet, Christy?"

"Not exactly," she said, still not looking at him.

"Then maybe you'd better step into my office." Rick offered his hand to pull her up.

Christy let him help her to her feet and gave Tracy a grimace that said, "Why did you say anything?"

Tracy smiled and blew Christy a kiss to send her on her way.

Rick led Christy away from the crowd and headed down a street that crossed the parade route. He stopped at a low cement-block fence that edged the front of someone's yard. Sitting down, he motioned for Christy to sit beside him.

She remembered the time last year when Rick sat with her on a cement-block wall at school and talked her into trying out for cheerleading. Today the damp chill from the cold cement shot right through Christy's jeans, and she shivered.

"Cold?" Rick pulled off his high school letterman's jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders before she could answer.

The jacket smelled like Rick. It felt like Rick's arms were once again around her. He was being so sweet and looked at her so tenderly. This was finally their moment to talk, and she had absolutely no idea what it was she wanted to say to him.

'"You know, you're the only girl I've ever done this with," Rick said, a half grin pulling up the side of his mouth.

"Done what?" Christy asked.

"I've never talked to any of the girls I've dated after we broke up. You're the first one. Their friends would talk to me sometimes. Usually it was only to tell me what a jerk I was to their friend."

This was a vulnerable side of Rick she knew he didn't show often. Christy used her eyes to tell Rick to continue.

"Ever since junior high," he explained, "I'd go out with a girl, break up with her, and never talk to her again. Now that I'm in college, I have a bunch of girls who are good friends. And, you see, you're in the middle. You're not like any of the girls I dated in high school, and you're not one of the girls from our college Bible study. I don't really know what to do with you."

With Rick's jacket warming her and everything so tender between them, Christy wanted to say, "Take me in your arms and hold me. I'll be whatever you want me to be, Rick!" Fortunately, she remembered all the strained feelings, hurts, and insecurities from when they had dated. She remembered Rick's arrogant nerve when he took Todd's bracelet from her.

"Let me be one of your friends, like the girls at your Bible study," Christy said softly. "I want to be friends with you the way I am with Doug and these others. And I want you to be friends with Tracy, Heather, and Katie. I want us to all do things together and not have to feel weird because of what went on in the past."

"I want that too." Rick reached over and squeezed her hand. "Friends?"

"Friends," Christy agreed, squeezing his hand back. "Are you sure we're okay?" she asked as an afterthought.

"What do you mean?" Rick asked.

"The last time we tried to talk, you said that you didn't think I trusted you and that I'd never given our relationship a chance. Do you still feel that way?"

Rick let out a deep breath. "I guess it's no secret that I've always felt a little jealous of the place Todd has in your life. Maybe there's room for both of us. Maybe there isn't. You're going to have to be the one to decide. I don't see any harm in you and me being friends and you and Todd being friends, as long as that's what we all are. Friends."

Christy thought she liked the arrangement, even though something in Rick's voice made her wonder if he didn't want more from their relationship. For now though, Rick seemed willing to wait and be friends, and that's what she wanted from him.

She had a hard time believing this was the same Rick who had dumped her in the mall parking lot a week ago. Whatever it was that softened him, Christy was grateful for it and felt more relieved than she had imagined she would feel. Finally she could fully surrender this relationship to the Lord.

A vendor was heading for the parade route, carrying a flat of roses.

"We'll take one of those," Rick called out to the guy. "How much?"

"Five dollars each," the man said, displaying his a.s.sortment of colored rosebuds.

Rick pulled a crumpled five-dollar bill from his pocket and said, "Give me a red one."

"Red is for love," the man said with a satisfied grin, taking the bill and handing the rosebud to Rick. Christy remembered all the red roses Rick had given her while they were dating. Once they had died, she had thrown them all away.

Rick looked at Christy and then back at the a.s.sortment of buds. "Which one stands for friendship?"

The man reached for a yellow rose. "Yellow," he said, trading the yellow bud for the red one in Rick's hand.

"What's white for?" Rick asked.

The man didn't seem to mind all the questions. "Purity of heart."

"We'll take the white one," Rick said.

As soon as the vendor was on his way, Rick turned to Christy, "You're the first girl I've ever given a white rose to. Did you hear what he said? It stands for purity of heart, and that's you, Killer Eyes."

Christy accepted the white rose, swallowing a lump in her throat. It was the highest compliment Rick had ever paid her. This rose she knew she would keep.

joined the rest of the group, Doug noticed them first. Holding out the bag of cookies Christy had made for him, he said, "Rick, you have to try these. They're the best ones yet!"

Tracy came alongside Christy, "So? How did it go?"

"Good," Christy whispered back. "I think everything is finally settled, and I feel good about it."

"That's what I wanted to hear," Tracy said. "Sorry if I kind of forced you into it."

"I'm glad you did," Christy admitted. "I don't think I would have talked to him otherwise. You did the right thing, Tracy. Thanks." Tracy was staring at the white rose in Christy's hand, and so Christy added, "Rick gave it to me. A gift of friendship."

Tracy smiled. "I'm glad that's settled. It's a good way to start the new year."

For the next hour, the group ate and talked, and the guys and Katie played more football out in the street. More and more vendors appeared, selling souvenirs.

Christy was content to sit on her blanket and watch the action going on around her. The morning warmed up quickly, and she shed her thick jacket.

Then official Rose Parade guards walked briskly along the street, shooing everyone back up on the curb. People began to press in closer, crowding Christy and Tracy together on their blanket. The spectators stretched their necks to see what was coming up the street.

They heard sirens. A group of motorcycle cops led the parade's way. Then the official white Rose Parade convertibles with dignitaries waving from the backseats rolled by.

"Who is he?" Christy asked when the first convertible pa.s.sed them.

"Who knows," Tracy said. "Somebody important. Just wave at him."

Tracy and Christy laughed and waved, like two little kids sitting on the curb. The important person waved back.

The Marine Corps Color Guard and Band followed the cars and started to play just as they marched past Christy and the group. It was so loud that she wanted to cover her ears with her hands but refrained, since no one else was. The drums seemed to shake the ground and make her heart thump. She had been to parades before, but nothing like this.

The first float that came by amazed Christy. It was a huge green dragon with steam coming from its nostrils. The monster swerved down the street and came within a few feet of Christy. She could see up close all the layers of flowers carefully placed on the float's frame. The variety of colors and types of flowers was astonishing. The dragon's scales seemed real.

"Look!" Tracy laughed as she pointed at the dragon's legs. "Those are brussels sprouts!"

"You're kidding!" Christy responded.

"They really are. And look, they used brussels sprouts on the tail too! It's a vegetarian dragon!"

The group around Tracy and Christy laughed.

Doug, who was sitting on the other side of Tracy, said, "I give it an eight." He held up eight fingers and whistled.

Rick picked up on Doug's cue and held up eight fingers from his spot at the far end of their clump of friends. Christy noticed that Katie had planted herself in front of Rick's lawn chair, using his legs for a backrest. They looked awfully comfortable sitting together.

The next float appeared, and Doug and Rick, wearing matching sungla.s.ses, slipped their gla.s.ses down their noses and looked at each other as if they were two official parade critics. Rick held up five fingers as the float motored by, and Doug gave it a six.

"That float deserves more than a five or a six!" Christy exclaimed to Tracy.

The float resembled a field of gra.s.s with giant wildflowers and a huge storybook spread open in the middle of the field. Animated b.u.t.terflies escaped from the storybook, and a wobbly rainbow arched over the field, raining down colored glitter on the parade spectators.

"I give it a nine and a half." Christy held up to Doug nine fingers and half a pinkie.

"Naw," Doug said. "It's only a six. Wait until one of the award-winning floats comes by. You'll see."

As soon as the next float arrived, Christy held up seven fingers, to which Katie responded over the heads of their friends with a three. Rick gave it a four and Doug a five.

"Come on, you guys," Christy said. "That was a good one!"

"I'd give it a seven too," Tracy said.

"Well, I don't see your fingers up there," Christy teased.

Tracy stuck seven fingers up in Christy's face. "There!" she said.

A band from a Minnesota high school came by, and Rick started to whistle loudly, trying to get the attention of one of the girls playing a flute in the front row.

"That guy doesn't ever take a break, does he?" Tracy said, speaking loudly over the music.

Christy shook her head in response. "I suppose I shouldn't turn my back on him. That's what my boss, Jon, says." Christy and Tracy were speaking so loudly that Doug heard them.

"You should have seen Rick last semester with this girl who lived in our apartment complex. He never let up on her, and she told him to get lost in at least four different languages."

Tracy looked at Christy for her reaction. Christy carefully kept a straight face, looking at Doug as if she were interested in his amusing little story and eager for him to continue.

Doug started to laugh at some funny memory he had. Leaning closer to Tracy and Christy, he let them in on the joke. "Rick used to know when she did her laundry. I think she did it every Tuesday afternoon or something. Anyway, he would go down to the laundry room with a basket full of dirty clothes and wait for her, pretending he happened to be there folding clothes. He would come back to the apartment with neatly folded dirty clothes."

"And she never went out with him?" Tracy asked.

"She didn't even tell him her name!" Doug laughed. "The guy can't handle being shut out."

"Hey," Rick called over to them. "Let's see those scores!" Rick was holding up a seven, and Katie had five fingers up in the air. Hie rest of the group had all joined in and were holding up their scores. Doug quickly checked out the float in front of them and gave it a six.

Christy didn't feel like playing anymore. Of course she knew when Rick went to college last fall he would meet girls and probably be his flirty self. But the first two months of ' school she was dating him. She felt sick in the pit of her stomach, thinking that while he was taking her to the beach on the weekends, he was chasing girls in the laundry room during the weekdays.

"Hey," Tracy said, giving her a poke in the side. "Are you okay?"

Christy nodded, but apparently Tracy could see right through her. "Don't let what Doug said about Rick bug you. You and Rick are friends now, remember? Don't let any bad feelings start up again."

"I was thinking that the girl in the laundry room was smarter than I was. She didn't fall for Rick's tricks. I feel foolish, that's all."