Antilove

Quattordici

CAPITOLO QUATTORDICI

wishes for the birthday girl

***

WHEN ROSE WAS SEVEN, her parents gave her a notebook. It was a dusty mauve, with gold detailing on it, her first name in capitals on the front cover, and gold outlines of rose flowers at the bottom. When she first unwrapped her gift, she asked where they could possibly get something like this. Rose grew up never finding her name on keychains and souvenirs.

"I know a friend," her mom replied.

And this notebook came back each year, on her birthday. There was never a return address and Rose wondered what would happen, if she decided to move out of this apartment.

Every year, she would try her hardest to fill each page, whether it would be a diary entry or just her random sketches. She wants this, she wants a solid imprint of all that she's done, in case she starts forgetting just a few years too soon. And no one knows about this, as these books never leaves the premises of her room. They're kept on the top shelf of her closet, the inside of the cover detailing the year.

On some notebooks, she even keeps a list of all the people she's been with. Rose would have to dig really deep to find those Easter eggs.

Today, Rose awakes to the smell of coffee, and she pulls over a robe, before finding Josh and Lucien making breakfast in the kitchen. They're both leaned over the stove, when Lucien yells, "Now!" Josh promptly scoops up what's in the pot, and delicately places it in a plate.

Not wanting to know what they're up to, Rose walks past them and opens the door, where she goes to collect her nineteenth notebook. After stepping back into the house, she says a good morning to Josh and Lucien, before locking herself in her bedroom.

Since she turned twenty, the color of the notebooks became a jet black, reflective of her inside. Whomever her mom paid, she's getting her money's worth in these deliveries and thoughtful transitions.

A note pops out of the paper packaging, wishing her a happy birthday.

Sometimes, she likes to think it's her stepfather, who's all the way in Denmark, and still checking up on her.

The first thing she does is to break the spine accordingly, so that it doesn't crease in undesirable ways. After doing so, she begins her first entry. It's a ritual, each year, for her to mark down on the first page.

It's a list, of everything she's come to be grateful for this new year:

- liquid lipstick

- D&G perfume

- my physician

- the notebook maker

- my unproblematic, although boring, roommate

- Lucien Serafino

- Lucien Serafino's father

- Amber

- my job at the company

And as always:

- dear mom and dad, who adopted me

If you were to compare the differences between this list and last year's list, you'd find very few discrepancies. For one thing, she's always thankful for her physician, despite breaking out in hives every time she enters the space. You'll almost always find Amber, the notebook maker, some form of lip product, and her parents.