City of the Sun (Juliana Maio) by Juliana Maio

Author:Juliana Maio
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Published: 2014-05-03T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

With only two hours of sleep out of the last twenty-four, Maya was surprised she wasn’t exhausted. In fact, she was feeling oddly energized as she inscribed the name David Caro on what must have been the six hundredth seating card she’d written this evening. Her calligraphy, which had won her the job of writing Cousin Henri’s Bar Mitzvah invitations, was a saving grace for Lili today, who had volunteered her father to have the menus printed for the fund-raiser on the king’s yacht. But Joe, usually as reliable as a Swiss watch, had somehow forgotten to get the task done, and with the printers closed on Saturdays and less than twenty-four hours before the big event, Maya had stepped in and offered her services. The organizers of the ball had liked the beautifully scripted menus so much that they had asked Lili if she could bring her cousin to the ball to help with the dinner seating cards as well, since last-minute seating changes were to be expected.

Maya happily agreed. Even though she would have to work for the first part of the evening, she would later have the rare opportunity to mingle with pashas and beys and sirs, and to be in the company of not one but three kings. Besides, she was feeling suffocated by her family, trying to make peace between her father and brother.

She grabbed every chance to get out of the house and had come up with an elaborate alibi that would allow her to spend a whole afternoon with Mickey next Wednesday. She was surprised how often she caught herself thinking about him and how much time she spent plotting how to make her next call to him. She loved their talks, even though he always teased her about all the drama and secrecy she brought to them.

He was handsome for sure, and funny, and he was also a man of substance—steady and real. An anchor in her tumultuous world. He was a wealth of information about what was really going on in the war as well as what was going on in Cairo. He liked history and movies and claimed to be as big a Charlie Chaplin fan as she was, though that would be impossible. At the end of their talks, she could almost fool herself into thinking that life was bright and promising.

She hated all the lies she had been telling him, yet it was probably a good thing that she was not more available because frankly, she was starting to fall for him, and it frightened her—what was she thinking? Soon she’d have to say good-bye. She cringed at the thought, but the timing was all wrong.

Maya put her quill down and, bringing the card close to her lips, blew on it gently to dry the ink. There were still over a dozen to write. The organizers of the ball had miscalculated the number of tables, and the seating cards for all three hundred guests had to be rewritten.

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