The Number 7 (24 page)

My mind went to Lasse. He seemed tortured. It was obvious he felt inferior to Gerhard; at least the way Grandma told it. Lasse was the boy who couldn't be tamed, whereas Gerhard was the son who did everything right. Lasse thought with his heart; Gerhard with his head. I wanted to champion for Lasse. Whatever his endeavor, I wanted him to succeed.

Dad's performance lingered with me for days after the last lines were spoken. The show elicited a slow panic within me. No one else seemed to be affected in the same way, and no one seemed to notice my distress.

I was becoming more and more troubled by Grandma's recent calls. She was building to something; I could hear it in her voice. She sounded reluctant to end her chapters, like she was clinging to the last line, like she was anticipating that I'd visualize the end before she got there. And the connection didn't go dead immediately anymore. It used to be like Grandma was cut off—barely able to speak the finishing sentences. Now, Grandma held on at the other end of the line, waiting for something. I could hear her breathing, hear dread in her silence. And then she'd be gone.

Two days later, walking down October Hill Road, the pathway wet from constant rainfall, my head ached from thinking about my other newfound dilemma: Gabriel Weaver and Christopher Harris. In North Carolina, I was a girl devoid of boyfriends. Greta had more than her fair share of male suitors. I was always fine with my one or two girlfriends. And, truthfully, I was always fine on my own, too.

It wasn't that I didn't want a boyfriend or that I wasn't interested in boys. There were plenty of boys at my old school for whom I carried secret crushes, but they never seemed to notice or care about my existence. Now, I was suddenly thrown into a love triangle for which I wasn't fully prepared. I withheld asking fate why it couldn't have sent me
one
of these boys, why it had sent me both at the same time. Instead, I asked Rosemary.

“Hi, Louisa. Thank you so much for coming to help me. I've got all the decorations put away but the ones on the Christmas tree.” She ushered me inside. “Can I get you anything? Hot chocolate? Tea?”

I hung my jacket on her little rustic three-armed coat rack and looked around the room. She was right—the cottage was practically void of all holiday decorations. Rosemary was much more organized than I'd ever realized. I figured most single women in their early forties had a routine, had boxes of their stuff with their labels, and a way of life they didn't have to share with anyone. Of course Rosemary was organized. There was no one else in her life to muddle things up.

“Oh, but you're a coffee drinker, I remember. Let's get the tree taken care of, and then we can share a pot of dark roast,” Rosemary winked.

She remembered I liked coffee.
Were we really that close? Were we becoming . . . friends? I smiled in agreement, rolling up the sleeves of my sweater. Sizing the stout tree up and down, I figured it would take us twenty, thirty minutes maximum, to get all the ornaments boxed properly.

We worked silently for the first five minutes, carefully wrapping each ornament in crepe paper and piling them gently in a plastic bin labeled “Christmas.”

“So, Rosemary . . . ” I timidly began. “What's the real reason you wanted me to come over here?”

She peeked out from behind the other side of the tree, looking confused. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I thought you needed to talk to me about something. That's why you asked me to come over,” I tried to read her puzzlement. Was it a ruse?

“Oh, honestly, Louisa, I just needed your help,” she shrugged, smiling. We continued wrapping quietly. It was warm in her living room and I felt a little sleepy.

“I'm going to go put that pot of coffee on,” Rosemary winked as I let out a loud yawn.

I took a seat on her couch and propped my feet on her coffee table, leaning back. It was nice to feel familiar here. I could vividly remember our first get-together, a pork chop dinner, just two months ago.

Rosemary joined me on the couch with a pot of coffee in one hand and two speckled ceramic mugs in the other.

I sighed, suddenly exhausted. “I don't know what to do.”

“What do you mean?” Rosemary took a sip, innocently arching one eyebrow with interest.

“Chris and Gabe. Gabe and Chris,” I motioned with my hands. Chris in my right, Gabe in my left.

“Hmm, I see,” Rosemary smiled to herself. She was so beautiful with her reddish locks hanging loosely around her face. Her heavy bangs swooped to the left, though they kept falling in her eyes and she kept pulling them back. A constant battle with which I could sympathize.

“Well,” she opened her eyes widely, staring into her coffee. “What do you like about each one?”

It was a question I'd asked myself a hundred times. And yet, my answer changed each time I thought about it.

“Chris and I have a lot in common,” I began. “You know, his mom is out of the picture, too. He's really a very sensitive person despite the hard exterior. And he loves history. He loves it in a way that he makes me love it, too. And he's great with taking adventures. And, God, I love his skin. Tan skin in December. He told me he's part Cherokee and blessed with a darker complexion. Lucky, huh?”

Rosemary laughed, clearly delighted with my happiness.

“But Gabe is so cute!” I whined, exasperated. “And he definitely has less emotional baggage. I like that he's confident in what he wants to do with his life. It's a level of passion you don't often find. He has good parents. Parents, I might add, he doesn't mind hanging out with. And he always makes me feel like I'm the only person in the room. Do you know what that feels like?”

I meant it as a rhetorical question, but Rosemary sighed loudly, leaned back, and let the couch envelop her.

“Yes,” she exhaled.

I knew she was sighing about my dad.

“Well, I could go on for the next hour about things I like about them. What I want to know is who I should choose to be with.”

“Who says you have to choose at all?” she asked innocently. It was a question I was anticipating.

“What? So I'm going to go around kissing both of them all the time?”

Never would I have admitted this to Dad. Maybe Greta. It was a new feeling for me, to share my emotions so openly. Rosemary had unknowingly introduced me to the world of female allegiance, where we could tell each other things that weren't usually public knowledge. Girl secrets. Greta and I only recently started unlocking our secrets to each other, however cautiously. I knew Rosemary would keep our conversations in confidence. And it was nice to get some of it off my chest. Talking about it aloud made my feelings easier to sort through.

And then the thought came to me: Rosemary could, for all intents and purposes, tell me which boy I should be with.

“Rosemary, can't you like, read people and all that? See their stars and know their futures?” I could hear my tone accelerate. I couldn't hide my excitement.

“What do you mean?” Rosemary suddenly looked uneasy. She rubbed her thumb on the side of her mug nervously.

“Oh, come on! You could tell if Chris or Gabe is better for me. Or, even, tell me which one I should pick. You know, don't you?” I clapped my hands together eagerly. All of her hocus-pocus astrology finally had a purpose.

Rosemary shook her head. “I don't go around constantly looking into people's futures, Lou. Not even mine. It's no way to live, really. It's just a hobby.”

She warmed her cup of coffee by pouring herself some more. I could feel she was ready to move off the subject, but I wasn't ready to let it go.

“Rosemary, I'm serious. I need help. I'm so confused,” the confession sounded pleading. “Can't you do something? At least look into my chart and tell me? Or look up my birthday to see who I have a stronger connection with?” It seemed too good to be true. Rosemary could provide me with a definite answer.

“I've looked at your chart, Lou. And I don't know whom you should choose,” Rosemary admitted, looking frustrated.

I couldn't tell if she was disappointed in my request or her inability to help. I hoped the latter. I felt my shoulders slump. For a fleeting moment, I'd truly thought she could guide me. Or at least point me in the right direction. Now, I was no closer to figuring out which boy I liked better. And I needed to. I couldn't juggle both of them for much longer without one of them growing impatient, and I didn't like being caught in the middle of my own indecision.

“I
can
tell you,” Rosemary softly encouraged, placing a hand on my knee, “I see you happy. I see you very happy, Louisa. Feel comforted knowing you'll make the right decision, whatever you decide.”

Surprisingly, those few words did make me feel better.

Monday morning, Greta and I drove to our second semester at Wyeth High School in The Thing. Rather than park in our usual, indiscreet section of curb on one of the neighborhood streets a couple blocks from school, the engine growled loudly as we proudly pulled into the WHS parking lot. Heads turned. Jaws dropped. And all Greta could say as she checked the rearview mirror and powdered her nose was, “Isn't it much better this way?”

Allison caught up with me at my locker before classes. She'd cut off all of her pretty curly hair over break and tied a ribbon around it for her first day back: a green headband in a halo of curls.

“Hi, Allison.”

Mine was hardly an enthusiastic greeting. Ever since I first learned of Allison's incessant desire to be in-the-know with the goings-on at Wyeth, I grew less inclined to make her a close confidante. And this morning was a perfect example of why that was a wise decision.

“Gabe said you hit the slopes over Christmas.”

I turned into my locker, reaching for a book I didn't need to hide an annoyed eye roll.

“Sure did.”

Allison blew a purple bubble of rubbery chewing gum. I watched her as it grew too big.
Pop!

“That's like, a big thing, you know,” she informed me as she regained her composure.

“Allison,” I sighed, trying to sound tired, not annoyed. “Does it really matter? At the end of the day, do you really care that I went skiing with him?”

For ten seconds, Allison chewed and blinked. Like she couldn't understand what I meant. She looked me up and down, trying to figure me out, analyzing me like Darwin and his Galapagos.

“Yeah,” she smacked her gum loudly, her face illuminating with self-realization. “I do.”

I let out a surprised snort. I suppose other girls appreciated her skills as an informant; Allison clued other people in when they were this week's hot gossip. I assumed she considered herself a public servant, and that I was a rare breed to her: the indifferent. Somehow, my ski trip with Gabe validated something in Allison. Her place in the teenage high school caste system? I silently wondered if this was how Diane Sawyer or Oprah heard their callings.

Sighing reluctantly, I shut my locker and turned to my classmate.

“What do you want to know?” I surrendered. I decided to give Allison the abbreviated version of events. My official statement. I didn't doubt it would be public knowledge in less than an hour. “I met his parents. He taught me to ski. We like each other. No further questions.”

Allison didn't know about Chris. As one of the outsiders, he was completely off her radar. To her, he wouldn't have been important enough to talk about. And I didn't volunteer to introduce him to the public. I figured he liked being where he was, and maybe even made a conscious effort to stay there.

I met up with Gabe in Photography. It was the first time I'd seen him since the ski trip. He winked at me as I sat down at the table. My heart instantly swelled and I felt that same rush I got when he first challenged me with his coffee-canister chrysanthemum. I fought the stupid smile I could feel creeping onto my face. I bit the inside of my lip, losing the fight. And Gabe knew it. He grinned from ear to ear.

It was finals week. All around me, the other students in my Photography class fidgeted, squirmed, and drummed their fingers too loudly on plastic binders. I expected at any moment the entire room could implode.

Gabe and I were the only ones sitting still. Our eyes locked on each other, unaware of the chaos surrounding us. It made Mr. Franz uneasy.

“Louisa, Gabe, heads down, keep your eyes on your own papers,” he looked at us suspiciously, handing us our exams as we grinned back at him. He raised an eyebrow, contemplated separating us, then shook his head and continued to the next table.

Ninety-five minutes later, after properly labeling the various components of a 35mm, after defining terms like “ambient light” and identifying the common missteps in ruined photographs (overexposure, dust on the lens, and shutter speed too slow), I turned in my exam. One down, four to go. The bell rang at the exact moment I quietly handed Mr. Franz my paper. As students eagerly grabbed their backpacks and elbowed their way out of the classroom, Mr. Franz came to the table where I stood, gathering my books.