she'd been able to select, order, and have shipped from England an entire living-room set while

continuing to claim that there was not a single chest of drawers in the entire New York

metropolitan area worthy of my basement bedroom. My dad just got really stern and said, "What

are you implying, Lucy? That Mara doesn't want to furnish your room?" Actually that was

exactly what I'd been implying, but watching him get like that, all cold and scary, totally freaked

me out. So I just said, "Nothing. I'm not implying anything," and never mentioned it again.

I pretended to be looking at a dresser roughly the size of the Arc de Triomphe while Mara

squealed with pleasure over the breakfront. Finally her cries of excitement ("Look, honey, a tiny drawer! " ) were more than I could take, and I made my way to the back of the store, where furniture was piled so crazily it was almost impossible to find a space to stand. Then my eyes hit

on something that actually got my attention--in a good way.

"Dad! Hey, Dad! Check this out." It must have taken my dad about twenty minutes to respond;

no doubt it's pretty hard to pull yourself away from a scintillating breakfront tête à tête.

31

"Yeah?" he finally answered.

"Make a left," I said. "I'm right around the corner where the little table is."

"Wow, this is terra incognita," said my dad, climbing over a footstool.

"And look what I discovered," I said. Leaning against the wall was an old-fashioned wooden

easel. The chain that attached the legs was delicately wrought filigree, and the wood itself was a

dark cherry, carved everywhere in an intricate pattern. It looked like an easel Monet or Ingres

might have used. "Pretty cool, huh?" I said.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "It's amazing." He knelt down. "Look at this." He pointed toward the floor.

"Wow." I hadn't noticed that the legs ended in tiny, carved lion paws. "That's beautiful."

Kneeling in the dim light of the antique shop, I realized this was probably the first time in almost

a year I was actually getting a minute alone with my dad. So it didn't exactly come as a surprise

when I heard Mara calling his name.

"Doug? Doug, where are you?" Her tone bordered on frantic.

"In the back, honey," he called, standing up. "Make a left at the marble table."

"It's so dusty back here."

Mara prefers her antiques nice and clean. It's okay that furniture's been used, as long as it doesn't look used.

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"Look what Lucy found," my dad said, pointing at the easel. "Isn't it amazing?"

Mara made a bright face. "Oh, it's lovely!" she said. "What a nice piece. It's like something you'd find in a museum."

Right then I knew I'd never be allowed to get the easel. If Mara had just said it was nice, maybe

there'd be a chance, but "It's like something you'd find in a museum" translated to "This comes into the house over my dead body."

My dad didn't get it at first. "Oh, you like it?" he asked.

"I love it," she said, nodding energetically. "It's really a shame we don't have a place for such an original piece."

Unlike my dad, I got where Mara was going with her faux enthusiasm, but I couldn't believe she

was really prepared to walk away from something so beautiful. "I thought it could go in my

room," I said.

Mara's nodding turned to head shaking and she smiled a sad smile. "I hear what you're saying,

Lucy. I just don't think it's quite right for the space."

Yeah, 'cause you wouldn't want to buy something that would clash with nothing.

"Well, maybe we could work around it. You know, you could pick furniture that would match it

somehow."

"Mmmm, yeah." She pursed her lips, like she was thinking really hard about what I was saying.

"Unfortunately, I just don't think that's going to work."

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"Well, why not?" I asked. My voice came out sharper than I'd meant it to.

My dad, who had been examining the scrollwork at the base of the easel, looked up. I could tell

he'd been too engrossed in the carving to hear a word that was said until now, so as far as he was

concerned, I was taking this edgy tone with Mara for no reason at all.

"Lucy, I know you're disappointed," she said. "But right now we really have to focus on the essentials."

She turned and made her way to the front of the store. My dad put his hand on my shoulder.

"Maybe another time, Goose," he said.

"Yeah, maybe," I said.

While my dad paid for the breakfront and Mara and the salesman set up a good day to have it

delivered, I stood by the door, idly thinking about the only good thing that had happened to me

recently--that wink I'd gotten from Connor Pearson. I was still thinking about it as we left the

store and started walking down the block. He hadn't just winked at me, either, I remembered.

He'd given me this really charming smile, too. The wink. The smile. The wink. The--

"Oh, Lucy." Mara put her hand on my arm. "I left my jacket back at the store. Would you run back and get it for me?"

The wink, the smile ... the reality.

Cinderella does not get weekends off.

34

Chapter Five

Luckily, Ms. Daniels was done conferencing, so after I got my lunch Monday, I headed to the

studio to eat it. On my way down the humanities corridor, I walked by Connor Pearson, who had

his arm slung casually around Kathryn Ford. They looked like something out of a catalog

advertising extremely beautiful teenagers. Just as I was trying to stop staring at him, Connor

Pearson looked in my direction. Our eyes met and he studied me for a second, like he could

almost but not quite remember who I was. Then he smiled a tremendous smile.

"Heeey--nice call on that Lakers game."

Instead of coming up with a witty response or just shrugging blithely, like I'm the kind of girl

who's always getting compliments on her athletic acumen from hot senior guys, I totally froze. I

just stood there, a deer in headlights.

35

Luckily my response (or lack thereof) didn't matter at all. Before even the wittiest person could

possibly have tossed off the cleverest response, he was gone.

The art room was empty, but it didn't feel deserted. Handel's Water Music was playing on the

tiny radio Ms. Daniels has on her desk, and the room's familiar smell of paint and turpentine and

brewing coffee was all the company I needed. I flopped down on the paint-spattered sofa in the

corner, pulled my sketch pad out of my bag, and idly flipped through the pages while nibbling

the tasteless sandwich I'd just purchased. Was Ms. Daniels right? Was my art taking a direction?

As I turned the pages, I tried to see my work as a stranger might, looking for patterns in the

random sketches I'd drawn over the course of the past month. But as far as I could tell,

everything looked more or less the same. I wanted to believe Ms. Daniels, that I was developing

as an artist. But even calling myself an artist (albeit a developing one) seemed pretentious. I

looked across the room at one of Sam Wolff's paintings. It was of a tree in winter--no leaves,

dollops of wet snow dripping off branches. Like all of his work, it pulled you in, made you feel