XV

I close my locker at the end of the day on Friday, knowing I’m going to have to break the news to Amelia in the car that I still don’t have a dress to wear when I see her in the parking lot in less than two minutes.

“Hey,” a lilting voice says from where my locker door once obscured.

“Jesus Christ, Rosemary,” I say, my hands moving to my face to cover the redness creeping up my cheeks.

“Good to see you too, Lola,” she says giving me a winning smile. She stands tall, no longer resting her weight on the locker beside mine, and for a moment I realize I’ve forgotten she’s nearly as tall as Ethan. She holds herself better, even in her block heel sandals.

“Right,” I say eyeing her skeptically. Last time I saw her she tried to weasle a confession of attempted robbery out of me and I confessed backhandedly like the idiot she makes me. “Good to see you,” I respond.

Rosemary smiles even harder and slings an arm around my shoulder and I think I momentarily go into cardiac arrest because why is Rosemary touching me?

She starts walking towards the exit and if I don’t want to make a fool of myself by tumbling to the ground in her grip, I know I should follow. So I do.

“So I was thinking,” she begins and the cardiac arrest is back. “I heard you didn’t have a dress for the gala and I’ve got a few laying around.”

“Right,” I say skeptically.

“And well we haven’t really gotten the chance to hang out and get to know each other like I’ve done with the boys.”

She’s gotten to know Ethan? Seems unlikely because it took me weeks but I don’t outright question her statement because there’s always a chance, a chance that for some reason hurts to think about.

“Right, and I wanted to see if you wanted to spend the night tonight and then we could get ready for the gala together tomorrow.”

This time, the faux cardiac arrest is so bad my feet actually stop moving and I feel like I’ve fallen off the monkey bars again and can’t get enough air for my organs to stop burning.

I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

“Blake’s still there so you won’t be alone with me the entire time,” she supplies like that’s supposed to help her case.

I don’t really want to spend time with either, let alone both because, God, I would have no clue what to say or do.

I wonder if this is what Ethan felt when I approached him in the library, asking something so out of line and out of my own mind that he couldn’t just process what I was saying and agreed for the sole reason of getting me to leave. If that was the case, I can empathize with him in this moment because, God, I just want to agree so this conversation is over.

So maybe that’s the reason I say yes, or maybe it’s the fact that I actually want to check up on Blake for just a moment, or because I’m genuinely interested in why Rosemary wants to do me a favour, or because I’m lonely and don’t want to return to my own house.

Whatever single thing or, more likely, mix of the things makes me say yes is likely a part of me that I’ll owe a lot in the future because now I at least have a chance of going to the gala presentably and seeing Amelia, Carmen and her girlfriend, and Mark.

And Ethan, if he’s still intending to go.

“But I need to message Amelia to let her know she doesn’t need to drive me.”

“Sure,” Rosemary says without contempt at the mention of Amelia, her foil, so some of my worries are eased. “Oh and don’t worry about an overnight bag, I’ve got anything you’d need at my place.”

I just give a tight smile in response because what else am I supposed to do?

Blake leans on the side of Rosemary’s car, evidently undisturbed but not happy with the fact that I’m accompanying them for the better half of the weekend. I don’t know if I should be glad or saddened that he seems so indifferent of my presence: I decide, I don’t care either way because Rosemary seems glad to have me so I focus on that fact.

“You drive,” she says tossing Blake her keys.

“Since when do you let me drive your car?” he asks but still unlocks the doors and starts to get into the driver’s seat.

“I want to sit in the back with Lola,” Rosemary says, sending what I can only assume is a look that says ‘ask me no more’ because Blake Weber, the ruler of asking more questions and dragging out a situation, is actually quiet.

He slams the door.

Rosemary insist I sit behind the empty passenger seat but doesn’t tell me why I need to. It’s likely something about her tenuous relationship with Blake in the seat in front of her.

I can’t help the sinking feeling inside of me, because really, I’ve made a mistake: agreeing to let Rosemary lend me a dress, agreeing to spend the night, backhandedly agreeing to a truce. I know the more I interact with her, the more involved she’s going to become in my life, and subsequently Ethan’s, and subsequently our search for Ava.

I know Ethan’s motives: for me because it will make me feel better, it’ll make me happy. I think I know Blake’s: he’s her family and practically matured completely under the helpful eyes of my sister, he’s not doing it for me, he’s doing it for her. But Rosemary? I haven’t the slightest clue: it can’t be for me, nor for Ava seeing as I don’t think her emotions run as deep as her skin and no deeper, so maybe for herself?

The problem if she’s doing this for herself still remains. What is she going to gain out of it? We’re not going to be praised or condemned for our search, we’re not going to be rewarded, and we’re most certainly not going to be thanked. So why?

Maybe that rules self-serving reasons out of her motives. Just maybe.

One of the first things that sets apart the Rutherford estate from other houses its size is it's year built and it's subsequent style. The Weber house was built in the early nineteenth century and resides on 'heritage land' uneditable under by-laws. That's why they'd house looks like it stepped out of another century.

The Rutherford house is just outside of town, past the service road and on the other side of the Conestogo river, meaning there is lots of land which was capitalized upon by the people who made this neighbourhood some ten years ago now: unlike most of St. Jacob’s, it’s a subdivision surrounded by houses just as grand and expensive.

Once a city life, always a city life.

Rosemary talks animatedly beside me about her day and how many people asked her about the gala. She had the audacity to tell them her Blake and I were going together even before coming to me about that fact. Despite my annoyance at that, I still unknowingly fell into her trap when I agreed not twenty minutes ago.

Blake glances back at me every once in a while, likely to check I’ve not tuck and rolled out of the car. I only spare Rosemary a few words during the ride, fully knowing I would explode with questions if I’m not careful.

The community in which Rosemary resides is blanketed by lush trees and dark green grass protected from the surrounding farmland by an automatic gate. Blake takes us up the side of the moraine, and the houses seem to grow from two floors and two garages to three floors and three garages.

Blake slows in front of a house no more grand than the others but given the fact that he’s pulling into the two car wide driveway, it’s the Rutherford’s.

I unbuckle and reach for my door as Blake gets out of the driver’s seat.

“Wait,” Rosemary says, reaching for my arm. She grabs me and I hold back the urge to pull away sharply.

“What?” I ask after a heavy pause.

Then my door opens and Blake is standing right beside the car. I look from him to Rosemary who just shrugs and gives the excuse: I asked him to do it, as justification for the fact that Blake Weber walked around the car just to open my door.

I grab my bag and climb out.

“Why?” I whisper to Blake as I pass him.

He slams the door with an unnecessary amount of force. “Be careful with her.”

“Come on,” Rosemary says, looping her arm with mine once she’s approached from the other side of the car. “I’m really in need of a bowl of ice cream and you’re all just standing here.”

She tugs me along and I’m left wishing Blake and I had more time to converse. Maybe I’ll find him in the night and demand and answer, or maybe I’ll just leave him be and pull the reasons and motives from Rosemary herself: that might be more difficult, but certainly more fun.

“It seems uncharacteristic of you to agree to come on such short notice, Lola,” Rosemary says as we enter the house, illuminated solely by the two storey windows in the front foyer. “Thank you for that.” Her voice is earnest.

It takes the time she takes us up the exposed, spiral stairwell to the second floor for me to realize the weight of her words and, more tellingly, the soft, kind tone her words took on.

Blake, knowing I’m lost for what to say, steps in. “You’re doing her a favour, Rose, Char hates being in her house.”

Rosemary looks back at me, and I catch sight of her out of the corner of my eye, however, I’m too busy admiring the view of the street below us outside the windows, and the quiet of the house too. Oh, how quiet like this would be so nice.

She comes and leans over the railing. “It’s really something, isn’t it? Mom had her eyes on his neighbourhood for years but everyone came in before we could.

“But as you know, people are fleeting blips sometimes.”

I straighten. “What is that supposed to mean?”

She toys with her necklace. “I figured you’d know with your sister.”

As a younger sister, everything was always about Ava: good or bad, it went downhill with age, so I am terribly familiar with casual, unneeded and unrelated mentions or questions about her. I understand and I empathize because she always represented both herself and myself at family parties, and to the town. But, even if there’s still a part of me that longs to know how and why Rosemary knew my sister, it hurts a little to have someone, who asked for my company (even if likely because of the actions and nature of her relationship with my sister) to bring it up so carelessly and casually.

Maybe it’s her way of saying she wants to talk about it, about the town and why she’s here. But I don’t want her doing that under the guise of my sister alone.

So I don’t let her get the chance. “Can we head to where I’ll be sleeping? My bag is heavy and I heard something about ice cream?”

At least she is trying, I’ll certainly give her that.

That’s why I don’t shut her down completely.

I find out, after an oddly long walk down a hallway, that, although I’m not sleeping in Rosemary’s room with her, it’s still the place we’re likely going to spend the better half of the night because it’s adjacent to her walk-in.

She holds the door for me, and once I’m inside her room, it’s just her and I because Blake has been ordered for ice cream⸺vanilla for the both of us because I don’t even know if I like ice cream seeing as it’s been years since I last had some.

Her room, like the rest of the house, has a decidedly suburban feel to it, with a rosy duvet over her queen bed and a modest accent couch seated area separated by a dark stained coffee table, currently home to a large vase of yellow roses.

It’s not as frilly as Amelia’s and as I expected it to be, it’s also not the other way (which was possible seeing her sharpness) with wine red and neon lights and wilting flowers.

It’s like her room has come out of a home design magazine, except for the subtle but frequent appearance of embroidered circles hanging on her fossil toned walls. A small sense of self lines her room and it’s an unexpected insight into who she is.

Rosemary sits down on her pastel armchair, dropping her backpack on the ground next to her. “Oh, Lola!” she exclaims, evidently remembering something that was important. “You have to tell me about you and Ethan.”

I sit myself across from her on the sofa. “What?” is my breathy laugh-like response. I am blushing though and she sees it.

“Come on,” she says eyeing me. “Are you not together?”

“No.” I mean, a part of me wishes yes.

She makes a noise of contemplation and then, in the blink of an eye, she’s repoisitioned herself so her legs hang over the one arm of the chair and her torso hangs over the other. Her hair falls and touches the hardwood when she rotates her head to look at me. “Well there’s always tomorrow,” she says.

“I don’t know if he’s going.” Unlike the relaxed and downright childish body language Rosemary demonstrates, I’m still stiff to the point my back doesn’t even touch the back of the couch. Then I remember I should be playing dumb about the feelings towards Ethan Rosemary is trying to weasle out of me. “Where did you even get the idea?”

“Please, I’ve seen you’re doey-eyes and desirable smiles, and I mean after what happened Wednesday.”

Maybe if I wasn’t so quick to defend my solidarity, I would have asked how she knew about what happened Wednesday night at the tree-house, but I don’t because my pride gets in the way.

“I don’t smile desirably,” I insist firmly.

“No you don’t, but he does.”

She’s playing a tricky game that I didn’t even know we were playing until this moment, when she tilts her still upside down head as if daring me to challenge her.

I know I can’t win but I can at least try to keep up.