"Eve?!"

"Yes, it's me," Eve replied, bracing herself for the imminent disaster she was sure her sister was about to describe, judging from the desperation in her voice.

"Oh good! Eve, you've got to come out with me tonight. It could be a defining moment in my life, and I just need you there. Please, you've got to come out. I don't want to hear a no. It's got to be a yes, ok?"

"Whoa! Just a minute, Dawn." Eve couldn't help but laugh. Her sister was always so dramatic, and while she loved Dawn, she sometimes couldn't do anything else but smile at her. "Just slow down and tell me what's going on, all right?"

Dawn huffed impatiently but took a deep breath and spoke slowly, enunciating each word. "I need you to come to a bar with me tonight."

"Tonight? Dawn, it's Wednesday. I don't usually go out on weeknights. I work early in the morning; you know that."

"I know. And I do too. Or I used to, anyway."

Eve rubbed her forehead and felt sad for her sister. "Dawn," she began, trying very hard not to let her disquiet come through. "You haven't found another job yet, have you?"

"Don't judge me, Eve! I've had—well, it's not like I can take just anything!"

"Yes, you can! If you don't find another job soon, you won't be able to afford your rent. The perfect job isn't going to just fall into your lap; you've got to take what you can get, right now."

Dawn was obviously irritated to have had her subject changed. "Listen. I'm not going to work somewhere that won't appreciate me for who I am or that won't be intellectually stimulating. You're lucky—you like everything. So it's not as hard for you to find jobs. I, on the other hand, am not inspired by most places. So I don't want to hear it."

"Dawn, I—"

"Not now, Eve!" her sister cut her off. "I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about you and me going out tonight."

Eve really did not want to go out to a bar with her sister. It was pretty much the last thing she wanted to do, actually. On a weekend, she would've been far more willing to spend time with Dawn, but tonight was not a good time. She wanted to see Oscar tonight. He'd promised to take her to see his pieces at the exhibit in the Contemporary Art Institute, but he'd been pretty busy the last couple of days and she was waiting for an evening when he'd be free to take her. She could've just gone herself—she knew where the museum was—but Oscar had been so proud, and so she'd wanted to be able to compliment and support him in his presence. She didn't know what Oscar was doing tonight, but if he called spur-of-the-moment and had some time, she wanted to be able to meet up with him. The Contemporary Art Institute had been offering evening showings all week, due to a new exhibit that had been installed.

"This really isn't a good night for me," she told her sister, foregoing all the explanation about why.

"Is it Oscar?" Dawn was perceptive. "Are you going out with him or something?"

"No . . ." Eve couldn't lie. "Well, maybe. I don't know. That's the thing. It depends on whether or not he's busy tonight."

Dawn thought, then replied, "That's not a problem. Just bring your cell phone with you. If he calls and wants to come pick you up and take you somewhere, then fine. If not, you can just hang out with me."

Eve sighed internally. Her sister thought of everything. It wasn't just the fact that she might have plans with Oscar that was holding Eve back. She just didn't want to go to a bar with Dawn.

"All right. Come on over."

"It's closer to my place."

"Oh . . . someplace particular, then?" Eve was mildly interested. "Fine. I'll be there by seven-thirty, ok?"

"Oh thank you so much! I'll see you then . . . and I'll tell you everything!"

Eve ended the call and fell back onto her bed. She stared at her ceiling fan as it spun slowly, methodically, pushing air lazily out of its way. Somewhat angry at herself, she wished that she knew how to stand up to her sister a bit more. Dawn was older, though only by a year-and-a-half, and even though she was chronologically more mature than Eve she was hardly emotionally so. In fact, Eve had always felt as if she was the older sister, because as the two of them had grown up, their parents had placed more responsibilities on her than they ever had on Dawn. Now that she was older, Eve knew that it hadn't been because they'd liked Even any less than Dawn but because they'd known they couldn't trust Dawn to act rationally. As cruel as she'd sometimes felt it was, Eve couldn't help but be frustrated with her sister. The woman was still financially unstable and spent above her budget, she hadn't been able to hold a job for more than six months since she'd been in high school, and she was as unreliable as a bottle rocket. Dawn was like spring weather. One minute she was subdued and calm, on her way to stabilizing and settling down, and the next, she was lightning and storming and bursting with life. She was moody to the extreme, and Eve had wondered more than once (though guiltily) if her sister might benefit from therapy.

Eve considered herself on the spontaneous side, but her sister was impulsive and erratic. A night out with Dawn could only mean an over-dramatized situation that would likely include both laughter as well as tears (though which of them would be doing one or the other was left to the fates), and Eve wasn't up for another of her sister's emotional rollercoaster rides.

Nevertheless, Eve put on some jeans and a turtleneck, then slipped on some flat shoes; there was no telling where Dawn wanted to go, so she decided to dress casual enough for comfort but classy enough to be admitted into a nicer establishment. She left her apartment reluctantly, wondering all the while what her sister was going to go on about that night, dreading the hours of conversation that would no doubt ensue. It wasn't that she didn't love her sister, she thought to herself as she walked through the fading sunlight toward the train station. She loved her sibling dearly. It was just that Eve worried more about Dawn each time she saw her, because as they were getting older, Dawn seemed to be moving farther away from reality. Their parents wouldn't be around forever to help support her, and if Dawn couldn't establish herself in a career or even a steady retail position of some sort, she'd fall under the wheels of the constantly-moving world and get run over as it passed her.

The evening air felt smooth against her face. Spring was coming, and Eve was thrilled about that. She couldn't wait for the warmer weather—not too hot but warm enough to wear short sleeves and sandals. She wanted to go to all those things that one could do in a city on the warm nights—movies in the park, street concerts, wine tastings on outdoor patios of new restaurants, meandering through the zoo to see the animals out at night, dancing on the lawns of barbecuing neighbors, and wandering through food exhibitions and other outdoor events. The nice weather brought everyone out of hiding and into the open, and it was the time of year that Eve loved for so many reasons. Oscar would be there with her for everything. That was one lovely thing about him: he was always excited to go to such events with her. Oscar was a little boy in his heart. Eve knew that. Even though Oscar imposed some harmful things upon himself, he only did so because of the child in him that didn't understand how to be happy with the world he'd been given. Now, though, Eve knew he'd begun to gain ground. He'd started to make a name for himself, and she knew that that was what he wanted. Oscar loved her, but he desperately wanted recognition from more than just the woman who loved him in return. He wanted to be admired by others, and Eve understood that, even though she thought, in her heart, that it was pointless and perhaps even detrimental.

He'd been so overjoyed to tell her about his recent success, and as she'd sat there at the dinner table she'd not said a word about her reservations. Oscar hadn't told her everything, but he'd told her enough: he'd said that one of his professors was behind everything, and Eve had become suspicious at that. However, she hadn't said anything, because clearly, Oscar hadn't wanted her to. And he'd made his decision and acted on it at that point, so it wouldn't have mattered what she'd said. Now, all Eve could do was hope for the best for this naïve man she couldn't help but adore.

The train seemed to take forever. Eve kept checking her phone, hoping Oscar would call and give her reason not to meet up with her sister, but no call came, and soon she was at her sister's towering apartment building, buzzing her shared two-bedroom from the lobby. Dawn came down to meet her, and the two of them left from there, deciding to walk to the bar, which was only a few blocks away.

"Where are we going?" Eve chanced, knowing that she was about to open a vein of extraneous information.

Dawn linked her arm through Eve's in excitement, and in spite of herself, Eve allowed her sister's enthusiasm to seep into her. "I can't keep it from you. You're not going to believe this, but I found someone worth living for."

Leave it to Dawn to fling about sensational comments as if they were uprooted dandelions.

"Last weekend, I went to this bar. I really didn't want to go, Eve. I wanted to stay home and be with my misery . . . you know, over what had happened at work. I was still in misery; it lasted a long, long time. Anyway Al made me go out. He said I needed to get over . . . that person whose name we won't mention. Ugh. And so I finally agreed when he showed up at my door and practically dragged me out. Actually, he said that he'd sit outside my door and keep knocking on it until I opened it, and then, after I opened it, he said that if I didn't come with him, he wouldn't leave my apartment. So it was blackmail, which I told him—it wasn't nice—but now I'm practically thanking him because right now, I owe Al my entire life."

"Dawn—"

"No listen. Just let me explain."

They were passing outdoor patios where people were sitting in the cool evening air drinking beers and glasses of wine under the still-burning outdoor heat lamps. Dawn was animated, now. She could hardly contain herself; she was behaving as if the world had melted and all that she saw was the vision she began to explain to her sister.

"The entire bar might as well have been in black and white. Nothing there interested me, partially because my heart was still in the process of breaking and also because I really believed nothing was left in the world. I just didn't care about it any more, you know. Al, of course, went straightaway to the bar and started drinking like the stereotypical German he is, and he kept buying me drinks, but I didn't want them so I kept giving them away to people. Don't tell him that, if you see him. After a while, he was so gone that he couldn't tell what was going on, so he had no idea I was just giving drinks away. I had to, though! He just kept buying them even though I said I didn't want any. But the whole place—just blah. Bland. The music was too loud and the place was so overcrowded and smoky. It meant nothing to me. And then, once we'd been there for a couple of hours . . . people began to clear out a bit. I'd wanted to go home so bad, but Al wouldn't go, and at first I was mad, but now . . . oh! Now I need to be thanking him. Because Eve, all of a sudden, it was just like from a movie. The crowds parted, and I had a straight view of the bar. I looked up from my misery and there . . . there he was. And it was like, everything suddenly gained color again, Eve. The place flooded with color. It was like, he was color itself. All the color in the world came from him, because he understood color, and the rest of us—me included, until I saw him—are always left in black and white. Because we don't have color. But oh . . ." she slowed down and took a breath, but Eve could tell it was more because she was overwhelmed with emotion than because she had talked too much. "He's an angel, Eve," Dawn quietly concluded, her tone having softened so much her sister could hardly recognize it. "I don't mean in the angelic sense. Not like he was sent from God or heaven or anything. I mean it like . . . like he's unnatural. Not in a bad way! But in a way I can't explain. What's that word that sounds like feathers . . .? Surreal . . . no, ethereal. Yes, that's it. He's ethereal. And that's why you have to come see."

Eve was hardly taken aback by this outpouring of emotion. She would, perhaps, have taken stock in her sister's description of this new person if Dawn hadn't described at least one man a month in similar terms. "So we're going back to where you saw him?"

"Yes. Oh, yes! I forgot to say that. He's a bartender."

Eve was not impressed. She didn't want to upset her sister, so she refrained from explaining why such a man wouldn't be good for Dawn, who always chose to become infatuated with men who were either taken or looking to be supported.

Dawn heard the silent reproach, though, and quickly became defensive. "Just because you can find Mr. Wonderful doesn't mean everyone else is so lucky, Eve. Don't say anything against this man until you see him yourself."

"I didn't say anything."

"No, but you're thinking it." Before Eve could say anything, Dawn added in a gush of delight, "There it is! The Burwin Tap. That's right; I'd forgotten the name. Isn't it so unassuming? It's just this dull little place that you'd never think could house such an amazement. I came back the next day, you know, after I saw him, to ask who he was. His name is Daniel. Daniel!" She repeated the name as if she held a diamond on her tongue.

Eve was beyond weary but kept quiet. She'd learned long ago that the best way to handle her sister's cathartic moments was to remain calm and let her get her thoughts out. They walked into the bar, which was dim inside and rather empty. Dawn had almost wanted to turn around at the door because she'd grown nervous, but Eve hadn't let her, saying they'd come all this way and that they weren't going home until she could get a decent impression of this man. But it had been entirely obvious, from the moment they'd entered, that the person in question was not there. The only bartender was a hard-looking woman with black and blue hair and several piercings scattered across her face.

"Oh!" said Dawn upon seeing her. "Not her again. She was a little rude when I came back to ask his name."

The woman behind the bar spotted them and called across the room, "He's not here. Don't bother."

Since it was so dark inside, Eve didn't see her sister's flushed face, but she could feel the heat of it.

"See what I mean?" Dawn hissed into her sister's ear, but Eve was actually relieved. The two of them sat down, in spite of the chilly welcome they'd received, and ordered drinks. Dawn's spirits drastically fell as the time passed and her current reason for living failed to appear. Eve, glad that her sister had calmed down (though feeling guilty for being so), checked her phone more than once to see if Oscar had called, but each check was in vain.