Seven Minutes to Midnight

18

As it turned out, my mother had other plans for us that night.

"What are you doing tonight, Amy?" she asked casually, after the wafting scent of pizza had drawn me from my lair.

"Nothing, I guess," I said.

She clapped her hands together. "Great!" Rather than noticing my dismayed expression, she bustled around the kitchen in her scrubs, pulling out paper plates and napkins. "We're going to have a girl's night out. What do you think?"

"Sure..." I said slowly, mulling over the word "out." We'd only ever done Girls' Nights in. Facials, manicures, and a chick flick. What did the outside world possibly have in store for us?

"We're going to get dressed up, and go into Boston to an art museum, and have wine and cheese, and mingle. Isn't that a great idea?"

"Is there a new exhibit at the MFA?"

She shrugged. "There are a lot of wealthy, sophisticated men who go to these things."

Ah, so it was going to be several hours of my mother getting tipsy and flirting shamelessly, not an art-related event.

"Don't you want to go with, like, one of your friends? I mean, won't it be weird when you're 'mingling' and your teenage daughter is hanging around?"

Her face looked so crestfallen I caved. Like usual. "Fine. But I'm going to wander around the exhibits."

That was how, on a Saturday evening, I was dressed in a black sheath dress and pearls and wandering around the echoing galleries of the Museum of Fine Arts by myself. At least I had kept my makeup the same, and I wore my black boots and a fringed shawl.

I had preemptively packed my small sketchbook in my purse, and when I reached the gallery of Italian paintings, I found myself a seat and pulled it out. The angels of Botticelli flowed from my pencil, overlooking a gory scene: a man with the face of Lane bending over the breast of a maiden who resembled Veronica. In the background, Frank and I, dressed in the robes of angels, looked on disapprovingly.

I had barely finished the rough sketch when a voice near my ear breathed, "Interesting subject, miss."

The breath tickled my ears and I jerked away, then spun my head to face Lane.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

He was already walking away with that preternatural grace, waving a hand casually at the paintings on the wall. "I came to look at art, the same as you."

I was not entirely convinced. Of course, knowing so little about Lane, I couldn't exactly accuse him of stalking me. I'd had my fears that he would be over at Veronica's or Frank's, sucking their blood.

His fluid walk was carrying him further and further away from me. It would have seemed rude to not speak to someone I might have called a friend. After all, we had hung out together on several occasions.

And so I tucked my sketchbook away and rushed after him, feeling clunky and clumsy and ridiculous.

When I reached his side, he presented me with that gorgeous smile, his pale eyes twinkling at me in the recessed lighting. His skin glowed a faint bronze, the paleness reflecting the golden light around him. In that light he might have stood among the gilded frames and marble masterpieces and called himself art.

He smiled and said nothing, and my brain sought to fill the conversational void.

"Um, do you like art, er, I mean, do you go to a lot of art museums? Wait, that's boring, and I meant to ask, what artists, I mean, what kind of art is your favorite?"