The Rule of Threes, Marcy Campbell [short novels to read .TXT] 📗

“Sure, why not?” Rachel said. Too casually, I thought. She pulled a pen from her pocket and sat in the chair by Mrs. Abbott’s desk.

“Okay, if you could vacation anywhere in the world, where would it be?” Rachel asked.

Rachel had asked this question of other clients, and every time she did, I thought of the beach in Florida, of how I had felt so loved and safe and how our family was perfect and nothing would ever change. My parents knew about Tony when we were on that trip, I realized. They knew, and didn’t tell me. I wondered if I’d ever again think of the beach in quite the same way.

“Anywhere? Oh, Paris. Definitely,” Mrs. Abbott said. She had a dreamy look in her eyes like she was already there.

“Awesome,” Rachel said, writing it down. “Now, which words would you use to describe yourself? Casual and comfortable, or chic and stylish?”

“Goodness, I don’t think anyone’s ever called me chic. Or stylish. Oh, but I suppose my Paris answer might be misleading then. You might assume someone who answered Paris to be a stylish sort of person.”

“There are no wrong answers,” Rachel said cheerily, even though she knew there were answers that maybe weren’t “wrong,” but would make our job more difficult. When clients’ tastes were all over the map, it was definitely more difficult. Rachel was a good interviewer; even when she was doing an impromptu interview like this, she never seemed judgmental.

Mrs. Abbott played with her gold owl necklace, which matched her earrings. She was wearing a thick yellow sweater that looked very soft.

Rachel was staring at that sweater. “Should we go with comfortable?” she asked.

Mrs. Abbott nodded.

Then, Rachel turned to me. “Do you happen to have the colors with you, Maggie?”

“I do,” I said. I had stopped to get my design binder from my locker on our way to the office. Inside was a piece of cardboard with a bunch of paint color swatches glued to it, which the BFFs had put together months ago. I set the cardboard on Mrs. Abbott’s desk.

“Okay,” said Rachel. “Can you choose your top two favorite colors?”

When I redid my own room, I chose yellow and orange, which were adjacent on the color wheel, though colors that were opposites worked well, too.

Mrs. Abbott looked at the colored squares for what seemed like a long time. Just when her finger started heading toward one, she’d lift it back up. “No, wait, maybe not,” she said. She took the pencil out from behind her ear and tapped on the cardboard. “I can only pick two?”

“Just close your eyes,” Rachel suggested. Mrs. Abbott did as she was told. “Now,” Rachel said, “imagine a clean, white sheet of paper from your printer. Nothing on it.”

Mrs. Abbott’s eyelids fluttered, but remained closed.

“Okay, now open your eyes and look!” Rachel said.

She did.

“Where did your eyes land?”

“Here,” Mrs. Abbott said, pointing to a turquoise blue. “And here.” She pointed beneath it to a pale green. “Those two. Yes.” She held up the card in front of her. “I really like both of those.”

This was perfect. I had just reviewed an article at one of our BFF meetings about the calming properties of ocean colors. It was a wonderful choice for outside a principal’s office. Everything currently in the space, from the battered chairs, to the torn poster above the bookshelf, to the books themselves that happened to be sitting out on a long table full of school newsletter pages waiting to be collated, were in bright shades of red and orange—vibrant, but potentially angry.

I noticed that the boy sitting in the chair waiting to see Mr. Villanueva had slid so far down in the seat that he seemed in danger of crashing right through the floor. If a secret trapdoor had opened, he wouldn’t have looked back. Rachel noticed it too, and wiggled her eyebrows at me. I gave her a big smile. She’d done such a great job of helping Mrs. Abbott to focus.

Olive started making a quick sketch in her notebook of the room, showing where different items were currently located, while me and Rachel asked Mrs. Abbott some more questions—about how the space was used, how many people came through every day, what the traffic pattern was like, stuff like that. We only had a few more minutes until the bell rang, but we definitely had enough information to get started.

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Abbott,” I said. “We so appreciate your—” But just then, the door opened, and in walked . . . Tony. I had a sudden panicky feeling. I glanced at Olive and Rachel, who were giving each other knowing looks. They must have recognized him from the other day.

He nodded at me. “Hey,” he said as he went up to Mrs. Abbott’s desk.

“Hey,” I answered, so quietly I wasn’t sure he heard me.

He said to Mrs. Abbott, “Um, excuse me, but my stepmom said I had to get some forms to bring home? I’m a new student? Anthony Miller?”

Everything was a question. I realized I was clutching my color chart so tightly, some of the squares had come off and fallen on the floor. Midnight Blue and Dusky Dawn. I picked them up and put them in my pocket.

“Oh yes, I’ve been expecting you. Your stepmom called earlier,” Mrs. Abbott said. She looked up at us. “You girls better run off to class.”

As soon as the door closed behind us, Rachel immediately started grilling me.

“That’s your brother, isn’t it? What’s he like? Is he going out for basketball? What music does he listen to?”

“I barely know him,” I said. “We haven’t exactly been having heart-to-heart talks.”

“I bet he’s super nice,” Olive said. “I could just tell by the polite way he talked to Mrs. Abbott.”

“Yeah, he’s fantabulous, all right,” I said as I gathered my stuff. “Let’s get to class.”

Olive split off to go to art while Rachel and I continued walking together.

“I thought you said his name was Tony,” Rachel said.

“Anthony, Tony,