The Pantheon (20 page)

She turned and caught his eye. He was staring so intently. Penny smiled and cocked her head a little. “What?”

Peter was a coward, but he had a little liquid courage in him tonight and he’d promised himself he’d do this before the night was through. Without segue he took three quick steps toward her, grabbed her cheek, and kissed her.

Penny had never been kissed. She hadn’t thought Peter would be the first to do it. He was a good friend. Sometimes when she had darker thoughts he felt like the only one she could talk to about them. She could talk to him about her father. But he scared her, too. Mostly it was the intensity in his eyes when she caught him staring.

Peter pressed his lips against hers. He could feel her freezing up. He pulled back quickly and began apologizing.

“
It’s okay,” she assured him. It got uncomfortably quiet. Finally Penny broke the silence. “I think I’m ready to go home. My mom thinks I’m at a movie and it’s probably over.”

Just like that? No acknowledgement of what had happened? Peter felt sick. He’d almost wished she had slapped him instead. He nodded, “Okay.” Peter started inside. The party had hit the peak and now it was spiraling into bad decisions and bad feelings, kind of like his decision to kiss Penny just now.

“
Do you remember where you put your coat?

Zach Jacobs had come alone. June’s parents had extended their happy family vacation in San Antonio, leaving Zach alone for Christmas break. They talked on the phone, but with the amount of intimacy he felt he was getting these days, there wasn’t much difference between that and a long distance relationship. He had hoped things would pick up after the coat room at the semi-formal, but that had just been a false promise.

It didn’t take Zach long to pick a girl and mark her as his prey. He was charming. He loved the hunt. She was the type of girl who liked to be hunted. She was a senior, an older girl already checked out of her education, just looking for some fun before graduation and unable to tie herself into a serious relationship before moving away to college. Zach maintained that he was the best remedy for the woes of senioritis.

The Wexler home had plenty of guest bedrooms and Teddy hadn’t bothered to lock any. Zach and this girl, whose name he thought might be Tina, found an empty room on the second floor.

“
I won’t tell your girlfriend,” she whispered between nibbles on his ear. Zach was satisfied to assume that girls weren’t stupid enough to incur the wrath of June Herald on purpose. He didn’t want to be reminded that he was cheating in the heat of the moment.

Tina-- whose name was actually Tanya-- undid the top button on her blouse and backed closer to the headboard, beckoning Zach to follow her. She wasn’t the kind of girl Zach would date seriously. She was easy, not at all classy, and she took far too much pleasure in seducing another girl’s boyfriend. No, Zach really didn’t like her as a person. He just liked her curves.

Zach crawled up the bed. His lips found her neck. He was just about to get his hands back on her when the door opened. “Oh my god,” someone said.

Zach whipped around and saw Evan Fuller just standing there, staring. Evan was pretty sure that the girl on the bed wasn’t June. Tanya took her time adjusting her rumpled clothes while Zach ran to the door. Evan blinked a few times and started to back out into the hallway.

“
Sorry, just looking for a bathroom... it wasn’t locked.”

“
Evan, look at me, you can’t tell anyone.” Zach grabbed Evan’s shoulders and turned him around.

“
You’re cheating on June!” Zach was glad for the noise. Evan had said that pretty loudly.

“
I know, okay, I’m not proud.”

Evan laughed, “Zeus is cheating on Hera. I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“
Don’t tell her, please.”

“
You don’t think she deserves to know?” Evan asked.

“
No, I mean,” Zach bit his lip. He took a brief pause to phrase what he was going to say next. “We’re having problems. She’s been distant and I screwed up, okay?” He needed Evan’s sympathy here.

“
What kind of problems?”

“
I really don’t want to discuss it, okay?” Zach didn’t need to explain that he could barely get any action from his own girlfriend, especially not to a guy like Evan.

Evan had a moral dilemma here. It was wrong but was it his job to tattle? “Okay, I won’t tell her. I won’t volunteer the information but I refuse to lie for you.”

That was good enough for Zach. June didn’t like to ask too many questions. “Thanks.” Zach clapped Evan on the back. Evan didn’t really want Zach’s appreciation right now. It felt dirty.

“
Just go home, Zach,” he suggested. “You don’t need whatever diseases Tanya’s carrying anyway.”

Tanya? Zach took a moment to process who Evan was talking about. So that was her name!

“
Yeah,” he finally said, “you’re probably right.” With Evan standing there he figured it would be a bad idea to go back into that room and resume his business. Zach went downstairs to get another drink. Evan had successfully blocked his efforts for tonight.

“
We often give our enemies the means to our own destruction.”

-Aesop

xvi.

His hands belonged to a statue, not a man.

His nimble fingers were speedy and artful.

His body-- but for his hands-- was misshapen.

His hands were perfect.

Soon the red clay took on its intended form:

The most beautiful girl he could imagine.

The gods, who watched and waited, were jealous

of The Smith’s product.

He had borrowed bits from each present goddess.

She had Aphrodite’s lips and Hera’s eyes,

Artemis’ legs and Hestia’s gentle way.

Athena’s presence.

Demeter wove for her a crown of flowers.

The women clothed her in a silver silk gown.

Zeus placed a jar in her arms and together

they put life in her.

She looked around with such curiosity.

The new woman was hungry for existence.

Looking at her, Apollo said, “She’s perfect.”

Athena agreed.

Such a woman so expertly created

made the whole council proud of their handiwork.

She was a gift for a long time foe, one that

no man could deny.

“
The soul of a man is immortal and imperishable.”

-Plato

XVI.

The first day back to school after the fire, the freshman and sophomore history classes were going to the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami. The museum had some great art from various periods of World History and this month they had an exhibit of figure painting on loan from the Acropolis Museum in Athens.

Jason Livingstone had volunteered to chaperone. They were going to need to hire a nurse to administer scheduled medications and inhalers for a few students anyway, so they had a substitute take over the office for the day and Jason came along.

Unfortunately for Jason, another chaperone on the trip was Candice Matthews of the English department. Even though he had been purposefully avoiding her since September, when she had roped him into helping with the semi-formal elections, Candice hadn’t gotten the hint yet that Jason wasn’t interested. Jason was stuck next to her on the bus, listening to her babble on for forty minutes about some doctor show she watched and how she really saw a similarity between him and one of the characters whose actor she thought was rather dashing.

The Fullers were renting a house until theirs could be gutted and repaired from their own fire. Because they were now so far from school, Evan had to leave fifteen minutes earlier. It cost his motorized bicycle a lot of gas, so he’d converted it to running on vegetable oil. As a result he smelled like French fries when he arrived at school. That didn’t help him find a girlfriend and it made the stoner who sat next to him on the bus to the museum look at him with too much interest.

Somewhere about half way to the museum Evan caught Jason’s eye. Jason hadn’t said a word yet in the medical drama conversation and he looked back at Evan, cocking an eyebrow. The boy next to Evan was now leaning in to actively smell him. Evan read Jason’s look and glanced to his side, shocked to see the stoner looming closer. Jason laughed.

“
I know, it was hilarious,” Candice rambled on, thinking Jason was laughing at some anecdote she had recounted from the TV show. “I think you’d really like it if you watched it.”

“
Probably,” Jason said, turning back to face her and pretend to listen. Evan got up and moved seats. Jason was the first one off when the bus stopped in Miami.

The first part of the day was a guided tour. The groups were divided by teacher. The museum tried to schedule field trips for the same day of the week and so there were several other schools visiting at the same time. One of these schools was Miami West. At lunch they were allowed to split off from their classes. Diana and Lewis spotted the Miami West quarterback, Walker Jameson, in the line for burgers and Diana convinced Lewis to avoid him. Jason had found himself a seat in a back corner of the café and hidden behind a book to avoid Candice Matthews.

After lunch they were given maps, a check-in time, and were sent to observe exhibits of their choosing. Jason chose to hide in the gift shop.

Not surprisingly, the eight present members of The Pantheon ended up in the Greek figure painting show.

“
Hey, look!” Astin whispered as he pointed at a plate. It was a work of black figure painting that depicted the battle with the Titans as near silhouettes on a red-orange background. “That’s Zach.”

“
Nice beard,” Lewis smirked. “I keep telling him to just let it grow. He could get into a lot of bars.”

Evan was staring at an image of a man tied to a post with his intestine being picked at by vultures. It was very graphic.

“
Hey, this card says this guy’s name was Hermaphroditis!” Teddy shouted.

Everyone but Valerie thought that was hysterical. “You guys are so immature,” she said, more to herself than any of them.

Peter stopped laughing. He sniffed. “You guys,” his grave tone made them all fall quiet, too. “I smell something burning.”

They all breathed deep. Evan was able to follow the scent to a door that read “Employees Only.”

“
Should we go in?” Diana asked.

Astin tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” He pushed the door open.

It was an office. Art prints hung on the walls. There was a desk with a laptop computer and mountains of catalogues and file folders. A pair of feet was visible from behind the desk. The stench was awful. Valerie knew from her own experience that it was the smell of burning flesh.

The old man on the floor was covered in handprint-shaped burns. Some of them went straight down to the bone. Lewis turned away and tried to forget what he had just seen, coughing and gagging at the sight.

“
Oh my god,” Diana muttered. “We need to call the police.”

“
Wait!” Peter put his hand up to stop anyone from moving. He grasped the doorknob through his baggy t-shirt and closed the door. Everyone else had the collar of their shirts over their noses by now. Peter stared at the desk.

“
What the hell, man?” Teddy mumbled through his purple argyle sweater. “It smells so bad, let’s get out of here.”

“
His ghost is right there, Teddy. Let me talk to him.” Peter went right up to the desk. Everyone else shrank back to the door. “Hi,” he began, “I’m Peter.”

“
Lionel Barker. It’s nice to meet you, Peter.” The ghost was a lot more recognizable than his corpse. He was in his late sixties, a well-dressed man in a tweed jacket. He was bald and wore horn-rimmed glasses.

“
You were murdered,” Peter said.

Lionel looked down at his corporeal body and grimaced, “Yes, I surmised as much.”

“
Do you know who did it?”

“
Didn’t see them, I’m afraid, but they did take the vase.” Lionel stood up and patted the spot on the desk where he’d sat moments before. “It was here when I felt someone grab me. I was inspecting it for damage.”

“
What vase?”

“
It was a piece of Greek pottery from the exhibit beyond that door. It was actually a jar, really, a Greek Pithos. Some high school students were horsing around before lunch; they nearly knocked it on the floor. One of them caught it but his greasy fingerprints were all over. I was cleaning it up, which is very meticulous work to ensure preservation. Oils from human hands are most detrimental to the quality of the artifact--”