Second to No One (29 page)

I shook my head at the newfound information and grabbed a pinch of cinnamon from the jar. “I can’t believe you’ve been putting cinnamon on this all along. I honestly had no idea.”

“Careful now.” He lowered his head and watched every ounce of cinnamon drop from my hand onto the casserole. “It has to be even and ever so slight, or people will start to suspect.”

When I was finished, I put the dish into the oven and turned back to the counter to start cleaning up.

“Okay,” he said with a satisfied grin. “Now what was your question?”

I swept a pile of crumbs into my right hand and dumped them into the sink. “It’s about mom,” I said. “Do you want her to remarry.”

Dad took a deep breath, and I could tell he wasn’t prepared for that question. “Well, I don’t want her to be alone.”

“So you want her to fall in love with someone else?”

I could tell this wasn’t the first time he had thought about it. “Well, yes. Yes, I do.”

“Doesn’t it make you crazy to think about her with another man?”

“Well,” he rubbed his hand over his neck and down his chest, “I don’t sit around thinking about her with another man. It’s not a particularly satisfying thought. But,” he shifted slightly in his chair and winced at the pain of the movement, “the thought of her being alone for the next forty years of her life is even worse, and unless I find a handful of magical beans that can cure this cancer, I’m going to have to deal with one or the other.”

“Okay.” I rested my elbows on the counter. “But you have to be honest with me, Dad. Doesn’t it make you a little jealous to think of her with someone else? What if she falls in love with him? I mean, she’d have to, right, if she’s going to marry him and really be happy? And what if they have this amazing life together? What if she loves him more than she loves you?”

“Gemma.” My dad’s voice was soothing. “Love isn’t a competition. It’s not about coming in first or second or last. It’s not about how much they love you back or making sure that they love you the most. When you truly love someone, you care more about their happiness than your own. If your mom finds someone else that she can love and who will love her back and make her happy, then I will be glad. Love isn’t about coming in first place, Gemma. Love is about putting someone else first in front of yourself.”

I cringed at the truthfulness of his words. I knew he was right. There was no room for jealousy in love. But that didn’t mean letting Jess go to Charleston and date other girls without bursting with envy was going to be easy.

“It’s kind of like my casserole,” Dad said, and I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out what he was talking about. “The two of us have shared a love so deep and so true for such a long time that it would be a horrible thing to not share that love with somebody else. And so I’m passing the secret on to you.” He pulled his list from his pocket and put a line through item number two. “She’s your responsibility now. I’m trusting you to treat her with care.”

I wasn’t sure if he was referring to Mom or the casserole. But either way, they were my responsibility, and I couldn’t live with myself if I let him down.

“Pella Methodist Hospital, this is Tina. How may I direct your call?”

I hesitated for an awkward amount of time. I didn’t expect an actual person to answer the phone. “Um, I’m not exactly sure. I’m trying to get ahold of a patient there.”

“What department?”

“Department?” What department did crazy people go to? My hand was shaking the phone against my ear. Why was I so nervous? “Um, I’m not sure. Psychiatry, maybe? Or psychology? Her name is Lauren James.”

“I’ll connect you to psychiatry. One moment please.”

My heart beat a million times per minute as the phone beeped twice then began to ring once again. A male answered, “Psychiatry, this is Jason.”

“Hi, I’m, um, trying to get ahold of Lauren James?” I had no idea why I phrased it like a question. “She’s a patient there, but I don’t even know if I’m allowed to just call and talk to her or what.”

The guy, Jason, laughed slightly on the other end of the line. “No, not unless you’re on her list. What’s your name?”

“Um, Gemma Mitchell. But I’m sure I’m not on her list.”

“Gemma…” I could hear him flipping through some papers. “Give me just a second.”

I waited impatiently. Of course I wasn’t on her list. This was just making me feel like an idiot.

“Hey, there you are. Gemma Mitchell, Franklin North Carolina.”

“I’m on the list?”

“You’re on the list.” His voice was congratulatory like I had just won a car on
The Price Is Right
. “I’ll put you through to her room. Hang on.”

My heart nearly leaped out of my chest, and I almost hung up the phone. What was I going to say to her? And why was I on her
list
? Was this a good list of people she hoped would call? Or a bad list, maybe of people she wanted to kill someday?

“Hello?”

It was her. There was absolutely no doubt about it. Lauren was on the phone, waiting for me to say something…to say anything. “Lauren?”

“Gemma?”

“Yeah, how did you know it was me?”

“Jason told me before he put you through.”

“Oh yeah, okay. So um,” I let out an awkward laugh, “I’m on your list.”

“Yeeeah.”

“I mean, I’m flattered. I just didn’t expect…”

“I could have five people on my list that I’m not related to. I don’t have a lot of friends. But I don’t really want these people to know that. So I wrote down you and Jess and Drew. I think Trace and Kit made the cut as well, so don’t feel too flattered.”

“Oh, well. I just wanted to see how you’re doing. You know, how’s Iowa and all that?”

“Oh, Iowa’s great.” Her words were drenched in sarcasm. “The views of brain-dead crazies in straitjackets wandering around the commons area outside my window is a wonderful thing to wake up to every morning.”

I tried to conceal my heavy sigh. “How long do you have to be in there?”

“Too long. Look, why did you call?”

“I’ve been thinking about you. I mean, I think about you…all the time. I feel really bad about what happened.”

A few seconds passed without Lauren saying a word, but I could hear her biting her nail on the other end of the line. Then finally she said, “Don’t beat yourself up over this, okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you shouldn’t live the rest of your life feeling all guilty about sending some crazy chick to the loony bin. This wasn’t your fault.”

“You’re not some crazy chick, Lauren. You were my friend. You’re still my friend.”

“I don’t think we were that great of friends.”

“Sure we were. We hung out all the time.”

“We were both hanging out with Drew. You and me…we weren’t that great of friends.”

“But I’m on your list.”

“I was desperate.”

“We ate lunch together every day, and I helped you get ready for the Christmas dance.”

“I hated you.”

“You did?”

“It was worse than hate. I loathed you.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to be you. I wanted everything you had. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it. I couldn’t beat you. I wanted to destroy you, Gemma. I wanted you out of my world and out of my way. But don’t be scared, I’ve told my psychiatrist all of this. They won’t let me out of here until they know you’re out of danger.”

“Danger?”

“Don’t lose any sleep over this, Gemma.” Her voice was dry and devoid of life. I wondered what they were doing to her in that hospital.

“If it makes you feel any better, I hated you too.”

“Yeah, I kind of knew that already.”

“I think if we would have met under different circumstances, we could have been good friends.”

“Yeah, like if you were Tom Sawyer and I was Huckleberry Finn and we lived a hundred years ago.”

“Yeah, maybe then.”

Silence. And another fingernail bite.

“Lauren?”

“Hmm?”

“I really am sorry.”

“My group knows everything about you.”

“You’re group?”

“They’re eight people I meet with every day to discuss our problems.”

“Oh.”

“They know you by name.”

“Do they know where I live too? Please say no.”

“Jason is actually our group leader. He was pretty excited that he got to talk to you.”

“I can mail him my autograph.”

“I tell them every day how bad I feel about what I did to you.”

“You didn’t do anything to me, Lauren.”

“Please, just let me finish.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You are a really good person.”

“No… I’m not.”

“Gemma.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t see it, but you are a really good person, and that’s why people like Drew and Jess and Trace can’t help but want to be around you. And because you’re such a good person, good things are inevitably going to happen in your life. And for a long time, I hated you for that. I despised the fact that my parents were divorced while yours were still together. I hated that you had a sister while I was an only child. I had dreams at night about hurting you because Jess looked at you in a way that I knew he would never look at me no matter how hard I tried.”

I waited for more, wondering if now was a time that I should say something. But then she continued, “But my group and well, mostly Jason, has helped me see that I shouldn’t compare myself to you. That my life is going to be no better and no worse because of what’s going on in your life. And so I’ve been working on that, you know, not comparing myself to you, and I’m starting not to hate you as much. In fact, I kind of like you.”

“Um, thanks?”

“And instead of seeing you as this huge competition, I’m starting to see you as someone I’m grateful I knew once, as someone who actually helped me get back to the place that I needed to be so that I can get the help that I needed to get. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry for the way I treated you, and I should actually be thanking you. So thank you.”

“Oh, well, you’re welcome. But I don’t think—”

“I need to go now. I’m late for dinner.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize anymore, Gemma. You don’t need to feel bad for anything. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Thanks for calling. The staff was beginning to think that I made up the names on my list.”

“You didn’t make us up, Lauren. We really are your friends.”

“Thanks. I got to go.”

“Okay.”

“Tell Jess hello for me.”

“I will.”

“Bye, Gemma.”

I hesitated. Was this really it? “Bye Lauren.”

And the line was dead. That was really it. I’d called Lauren. I’d apologized to her—or tried to anyway—and that was it, and I knew there was a very good chance I was never going to talk to Lauren James again for the rest of my life.

“Can I ask you something?” Jess’s voice cracked slightly as we swung lazily in the hammock in my backyard. Jess had just eaten dinner with my family, and now we were enjoying one of the last summer nights in Franklin that we would have together.

“Of course you can,” I replied, sinking deeper into his chest.

“Do you think we’ll get married someday?”

My whole body filled with butterflies at the thought. But how could I answer a question like that? Especially with all the uncertainty ahead of us? “Not if you keep trying to sabotage our relationship by ordering me to date other guys.”

“You still think I’m out to ruin us?”

“Only sometimes.”

“I just want you to be happy.”

“I want you to be happy too, but I just hate the idea of you being happy with somebody else.”

“I won’t be happy with somebody else.”

“Speaking of which… I talked to Lauren yesterday.”

“Lauren who?”

I looked at Jess like he must be kidding. “Lauren James. I called the hospital up in Pella.”

“And they put you through to her? Just like that?”

“Well, I had to pull some strings, but yeah, they put me through.”

“What did she say? What did
you
say?” Jess sat up and propped both of his hands behind his head. He was obviously intrigued by the interaction.

“It wasn’t a big deal. I just wanted to see how she was and, you know, apologize for everything. And she apologized too, and now we’re good.”