Thorson took the cordless phone from his mom and said, “Hello?”
He had no idea who would be calling him so late, but he was completely unprepared to hear her voice on the other end. In the entire time that they had known each other, their communication had been limited to Skype, twitter, and facebook. They had never called or even texted each other (primarily because Thorson was one of the few people on the planet who did not have a cell-phone). Besides, with Raphael in the picture now, Thorson figured that Bertha would never talk to him again. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to talk to her at the moment, but he was too polite to hang up on her.
Bertha said, “I’ve been trying to contact you on Skype, but you must have been away from your computer.”
“Yeah, I was listening to music.” Thorson had been using the computer earlier, but had shut it off about an hour ago and was listening to some of the Raffi CD’s that his mom had found for him. “How was your date?” He hadn’t meant for the last word to come out so venomously, but he wasn’t able to quite suppress the sarcastic tone from his voice. Fortunately, Bertha didn’t seem to notice.
“Thord, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I had a horrible time on my date…I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Raphael is a nice enough guy, but the entire time, all I could think was, ‘I wish that Raphael was you.‘ You asked me the other day if I would be your girlfriend. I’m not sure that I’m ready, quite yet, to say yes to that, but I’m willing to consider it…if the offer is still on the table…I certainly don’t want to be anyone else’s girlfriend right now, as apparently thoughts about you aren’t going to leave me alone.” Thorson could almost hear the corners of Bertha’s mouth turn up at the end of her last comment.
Thorson wasn’t sure what to think about Bertha not being his girlfriend yet, but he was elated that she wasn’t going to be someone else’s girlfriend either. There was hope! He tried to think of something to say, but Bertha wasn’t quite done talking yet.
“It was actually Raphael that told me I should call you tonight. He seemed to notice that I wasn’t having much fun, and when he asked me what the trouble was, I tried to avoid the subject, but he kept on it until I finally told him about you. He said, ‘Bertha, I like you a lot, but I’m not the kind of guy who steals someone else’s girl. I’ll be content if we can be friends.’ That helped ease the tension, and he rode with me on the bus to the stop closest to my place. Just before the bus came to a stop, he said, ‘Thorson’s a lucky guy. I hope I can meet him sometime.'”
Thorson and Bertha talked until Thorson’s mom knocked on his door and said, “You really should get to bed soon, it’s after 1 a.m.”
Before they said goodbye, Thorson asked how she had found his phone number, as he had never given it to her.
“I figured that there couldn’t be too many ‘The Thirds’ in Saskatchewan…turns out you’re the only ones!”
They hung up, and Thorson went to bed. Happy. Apparently Raphael wasn’t such a bad guy after-all!
~~to be continued~~
Quest for Whirled Peas 