by P. J. Night
Cora punched her pillow. She was overthinking this again. It was time to stop obsessing about this! Evan was a great guy. He was taking her to the dance, and they would have a wonderful time.
“There are no problems,” Cora said aloud. Except that she’d better start coming up with some ideas for the Perseus and Andromeda project. She sure wasn’t going to have time to do it this coming weekend.
On Saturday morning, Cora sprang out of bed the second she opened her eyes. This was going to be a big day.
Her dress, in its special garment bag, was already draped over her desk chair. Her strappy sandals were in a shoe bag next to the chair. (This might be the one time in its life that the shoe bag—a present from her aunt—would be used.) Makeup bag: check. Hairbrush: check. Earrings and necklace: check.
Breakfast: not check. Cora headed down to the kitchen. She was just pouring herself some milk when her phone rang.
“Cora.” It was Evan’s voice.
Uh-oh. That didn’t sound like a great way to start a conversation, especially so early in the morning.
“Yes?” said Cora cautiously.
“I have some bad news.”
Cora winced. Please, please let this not be about the dance!
“I have to work tonight.”
“What? I thought the pizza place had given you the night off!”
Evan’s voice was heavy. “They did. But I have to work at the museum all day. There’s a lot of last-minute stuff to help get ready for the unveiling tomorrow. I have a ton of errands to run, and the sisters need me at the museum, probably at least until eight o’clock tonight.”
“But—but the dance is at seven.”
Cora’s dad passed by the kitchen just then and gave her a questioning look. Angrily Cora waved him away.
“I know. I won’t be done by then.”
“Why can’t you just say no this once?” she wailed at Evan. “You always act as if they own you!”
Evan was silent for a second. Then he said, “I don’t think I can make you understand.”
Cora would have been willing to argue forever, but Evan sounded so miserable that she couldn’t stay mad. Staring at the ceiling, she allowed herself a silent moment to swallow back the tears that were welling up. Then—in a fake, perky voice—she chirped, “Let’s figure out a way to make it work.”
“You’re the best,” said Evan. “I mean it. The. Best. I’ll make it up to you somehow.”
“Why don’t you make it up to me now by coming up with an idea?”
“Well, the simplest thing would just be to get there late,” Evan said.
“We can’t. They’re not letting anyone in after seven thirty. Let’s see, let’s see . . .Why don’t I help with your errands? Where do you have to go?”
“Um . . . to the supermarket, for hors d’oeuvres. The bakery, for the cake. I have to refill the postcard piles at the library. And I have to get to the Hitchens Museum to set up a delivery. They’re lending us a special bench pedestal for the day.” He paused, then added, “Just boring stuff like that.”
“It doesn’t sound boring! It sounds like fun! And when we’re all done with the errands, we can go to the sculpture garden and I can help with whatever you have to do there. I bet we can finish everything up in plenty of time to get to the dance.”
“But I hate to ask you to do all this. For one thing, you wouldn’t have time to go home and get ready.”
Cora had just been thinking about that. “I could get ready at the museum when we’re done working. I could bring my dress and my other stuff. We’re not going to be doing anything messy like planting trees, are we?”
Evan laughed. “No, no. Just tidying up. Photocopying the programs for tomorrow. Stuff like that.”
“Well, then?”
“Well, then, okay!” said Evan. “Do you think one of your parents could pick me up at noon and then drop us off at the supermarket? That would save some time right there.”
“Fine. But first I’d better tell my friends that I won’t be meeting them at Hailey’s to get ready. Wish me luck! They’re not going to be happy about it.”
Cora’s mother wasn’t too pleased either. “I wanted to take pictures,” she protested, “and now I won’t even get to see what you look like before the dance.”
“I’m disappointed too,” Cora answered. “I wanted everything to be traditional. But this way is better than not going at all.”
“How about if I swing by the museum just before you leave for the dance? That way I could at least get a photo of you and Evan.”
“Mom! Please, no! Things are complicated enough already. I don’t want you getting all in Evan’s face with a camera.”
“I won’t get all in his face,” said Mrs. Nicolaides indignantly. “It’s really your picture I care about, anyway.”
“Well, you’re going to have to use your imagination. Imagine that I’m radiantly beautiful and Evan is stunningly handsome. That will bring you close to the truth.”
“Also, what are you going to do about supper?” asked Cora’s mother. “Take some sandwiches or something.”
“No sandwiches,” said Cora firmly. “We’re going to the supermarket and a bakery. We can pick something up there. Don’t worry! It’s all going to be great.”
She hoped she was right.
Cora didn’t have to hunt for Evan when she got to the garden. He was in the house’s foyer, pacing around as he waited for her.
His first words were, “There’s a coat closet in the conference room. You can hang your dress in there.”
“You could say hi first,” Cora teased him.
“Yeah, you’re right. Hi. Let’s put your stuff in the closet and get out of here.”
Cora took a step back to look at him. “Evan, what’s the matter? You look all nervous.”
“I kind of am,” confessed Evan as they headed for the conference room. “So many details, and feeling pulled in so many directions—it feels as if today has too many moving parts. It’s nice of your dad to give us a ride, though.”
Once they were in the car, Evan seemed to cheer up. “So what did Hailey and everyone say?” he asked.
“You do not want to know,” Cora said. “Anyway, I got through it. They may even speak to us at the dance if we’re very, very nice to them.”
“Here’s the supermarket,” Cora’s dad said a few minutes later as he turned into the entrance of the parking lot. “Are you okay from here on?”
“Yup,” said Evan and Cora at the same time.
“It’s lucky the supermarket delivers,” Cora said an hour later. “That was a huge list.”
It had actually been fun to grocery shop with Evan. They had roamed the aisles picking out whatever they thought looked partyish. (“This is one thing the sisters totally wouldn’t be able to do,” Evan said. “The only party food they know about is olives.”) When Evan had paid and arranged for the delivery, he and Cora headed to the bakery, which was a short walk away.
“Do we get to pick out a bunch of stuff here, too?” asked Cora.
“Unfortunately, no. We get to pick out a cake. And it has to be something Eunice and Stesha will like. That means not too sweet and not too decorated.”
Cora made a face. “Boring, in other words. Or with a gross filling, like figs.”
Evan opened the door to the bakery, and they both headed inside.
“We need to order a cake,” Evan told the baker’s assistant.
The assistant, a young woman, looked confused. “For the two of you?”
“No, no. It needs to serve a lot of people. It’s for an art opening.”
“Cool! Is there a picture you want us to copy?” asked the woman. “We can airbrush anything you want onto cakes. How about the Mona Lisa?”
It took a while to convince her that they weren’t interested in a Mona Lisa cake. Evan also had to talk her out of her next idea—a statue-shaped cake with gray icing. Finally they settled on a dark-chocolate sheet cake with a bitter, dark-cho
colate icing.
“Is there any sugar in this at all?” Cora asked, wrinkling her nose.
“This icing has a sophisticated flavor,” the assistant said kindly. “Really more of an adult thing.”
“Just right for Eunice and Stesha,” said Evan. “They disapprove of desserts.”
Cora was still trying to get the bitter taste out of her mouth. “They should approve of this then,” she said. “It punishes you with every bite.”
After the bakery came the postcard drop-off at the library and a short stop for lunch. Then Evan and Cora stuck up a few last-minute flyers. Finally they boarded a bus that would take them across town to the Hitchens Museum.
“Why did we have to come this far to borrow a pedestal?” asked Cora as they climbed down the steps of the bus.
Evan shrugged. “Eunice and Stesha know the owner. Some of their sculptures are actually here on loan for an exhibit. We can see them if you want.”
Cora was half-inclined to say that she’d already seen enough of the Metaxas statues and didn’t need any reminders. But when Evan had arranged for the loan of the pedestal, and the two of them were on their way out, they actually passed the exhibit Evan had mentioned.
“Look!” Evan stopped at the entrance to the room and pointed at one display case. “Let’s take a quick look.”
Cora sighed loudly. “All right. One minute, but then we really have to go.”
“I recognize that hedgehog,” Evan said as they approached a cluster of cute little animal statues.
“Oh, it’s not the huge garden sculptures!” said a relieved Cora.
“No, this is just animals and plants and vases. Small stuff.” He gestured toward a plaque on the wall that read FLORA AND FAUNA OF THE CLASSICAL ERA.
Cora grinned. “As long as there are no Minotaurs, it’s fine by me.”
It was the kind of exhibit Cora especially liked. Not big grand “educational” objects, but glimpses of everyday life in the past. Three rooms were filled with pottery, jewelry, and paintings featuring animals or plants in some way. Somehow it surprised Cora whenever she realized that artists from centuries before had been interested in animals and plants just the way she was.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” asked Evan. “These statues are two thousand years old, and there’s still so much detail you can see in them.”
“You’re right,” agreed Cora. She was looking at a tiny kitten sculpture, carved from black obsidian. “Look, a kitten! Why can’t they have some cute sculptures on display at the garden?”
“I don’t know—you have to admit, it’s cute, but it’s not the most impressive thing in the world,” Evan said.
“I guess so,” Cora said, turning to Evan. “But this kitten definitely makes me happier—”
She had just turned to look at the obsidian kitten again. Before, the kitten had been standing upright. Now it was arching its back.
Cora gasped. “Evan! Did you see that?”
“Did I see what?”
“It’s not the same statue! The kitten wasn’t arched that way.”
Evan’s face was blank. “Uh, no,” he said slowly after a second. “It was arched. Are you okay?”
“Of course I am!” snapped Cora, glaring at him. “I’m not seeing things. It was definitely—”
In the instant she’d glanced away, the statue had changed position again. Now the kitten had fangs bared, poised to spring straight at her.
Without thinking, Cora jumped back.
“Careful! Wait! Stop!” yelled Evan. “There’s a pedestal there—”
His warning came too late. Cora had already backed into the pedestal. There was a terrible crash behind her as a glass display case toppled to the floor and shattered.
“Oh no!” gasped Cora. “What did I do?”
“Miss! Step away from there!” A guard was running up to her, another guard right behind him.
“Don’t walk on any glass,” said Evan. He took Cora’s arm and guided her a few feet to the side.
Horrified, Cora stared down at the floor. Broken glass was everywhere. In the middle of the jagged shards were the remains of an ancient vase, cracked into eight or ten pieces.
“What was that?” she half whispered.
Evan, she saw, was looking a little pale. He pointed at the display card.
“‘Greek wine amphora,’” Cora read aloud. “From 150 BCE. Torpedo-shaped clay vessel showing the struggle between Herakles and Apollo. On loan from the’—” She stopped, and Evan finished reading for her.
“‘On loan from the Metaxas Sculpture Garden.’”
“Miss, you are in serious trouble,” snapped the first guard. The guard behind him was already muttering into his walkie-talkie.
“You don’t have to tell me that,” moaned Cora. “Was it valuable?”
“Probably,” said Evan. “But don’t worry,” he added, not very convincingly.
“Don’t worry? Will I have to go to jail?”
“Of course not. You didn’t—”
“You’re both going to need to come with me,” interrupted the first guard.
“Wait,” said Evan. “I work for the museum that the vase belonged to. I should call the owners right away.”
At the guard’s nod, Evan pulled out his phone and quickly punched in the number.
“Eunice?” he said after a second. “Oh, Stesha. Hello. Um, we’re at the Hitchens, and there’s a problem.”
Cora couldn’t bear to look at Evan as he told Stesha what had happened. She stared at the ceiling, trying not to cry.
“Yes, there’s a guard right here,” she heard Evan say. “Two of them. Do you want to—okay.”
He held the phone out to the first guard. “I have one of the owners right here. She’d like to talk to you.”
The guard listened without expression, then handed the phone back to Evan. “They’ll be here in ten minutes, she says. And she wants you two to wait here with me.”
“Can we at least sit down?” asked Evan.
“Sure. Use that bench over there.”
It was the worst—and longest—ten minutes Cora had ever lived through. Evan didn’t say a word, and she couldn’t bring herself to break the silence. The first guard stood in the doorway, his eyes fixed on them as if they might try to escape. The second had disappeared, perhaps to make a report.
There goes the dance, Cora thought wretchedly. Whatever happened, she was sure Evan wouldn’t want to go now. And the vase had to have been valuable—was she going to have to pay for it? She had a feeling that extra babysitting wouldn’t cover it. What would the cost do to her parents? Would they go broke paying the sisters back?
Evan wouldn’t want to see her anymore—she was sure of that. Oh, if only she hadn’t suggested helping him today! She hadn’t helped him a bit. She had only—
“Here they are,” Evan said in an undertone as Eunice and Stesha swept into the room. He jumped to his feet and walked over to them, Cora following uncertainly behind him.
“Show us,” said Eunice imperiously, before anyone else could say a word.
They led her and Stesha to the pile of broken glass and pottery. In silence, the two women bent over to look at the damage. Almost immediately they both stood up again.
“Pah! It is nothing,” said Eunice.
“What do you mean?” asked Cora. “It was thousands of years old!”
“Correct, but it was not particularly rare. Or interesting.”
“In any case, this type of vase is easy to come by and will be easily repaired,” put in Stesha. “The important thing, Cora, is that you were not hurt.”
“Just so,” agreed Eunice. “Compared to you, the vase is meaningless. You are the real treasure.”
“I—what? I am?”
“Indeed,” said Stesha. “We are lucky to have met you. And so is Evan.”
Cora thought that sounded a little over the top, but it was better than having the sisters angry at her.
She turned to Evan. “We don’
t have to go to the dance,” Cora said. “Really, I feel like I should make it up to you all by working tonight.”
“Nonsense,” said Stesha. “Tonight is your big night. If you would like, you may help us with the few remaining chores at the garden, but then you should go to your dance.”
“Really?” said Cora, on the verge of tears.
“Really,” Eunice echoed. “Put this from your mind. It was only an accident.”
“Oh thank you so much!” Cora said. Evan took her hand and looked down at her. There was a sadness in his eyes she didn’t understand, but there wasn’t any time to linger on what had happened—the dance was just three hours away!
“Here we are,” Eunice said as the four of them pulled up to the sculpture garden. Cora was happy that things had worked out and was ready to tackle the list of chores that were left for the unveiling tomorrow.
As she and Evan reviewed the list, Cora thought the different tasks seemed refreshingly ordinary compared to what she’d just been through. Besides, every task they could cross off brought them closer to the dance!
As the sisters headed back to their office, Evan turned to her. “Do you want to work together, or should we divide and conquer?”
“We might as well split up,” Cora answered. “You can do all the heavy lifting, but we have to keep track of the time.”
For the next couple of hours the two of them worked at top speed. Cora had to photocopy a bunch of programs for the next day’s event. (The photocopier had a temper tantrum at first, but finally she calmed it down.) She washed way too many dishes. (Hadn’t the sisters ever heard of cleaning up as they went along?) She even had to iron some backdrops for a couple of displays in the little museum. (Which basically meant learning how to use an iron.) She also checked the time about once a minute, which was a job in itself. Before she knew it, everything on her part of the list was done.
Cora sighed with satisfaction as she put away the last of the clean dishes. True, this hadn’t been the prepare-for-the-dance day she’d been counting on. But everything had worked out after all. She was pretty sure she would take longer to get ready than Evan, so why not get started now? She practically skipped down the hall to the conference room. Eagerly she pulled open the closet door.
