WANTED: Love of my Life

10. One plus one makes seven?

It was a peaceful evening. The sun was slowly setting behind the horizon. Only a few people were sitting around us at tables of the little coffee shop. After all, who wanted to drink coffee this late in the day? Pigeons were picking at breadcrumbs on the street. A gentle breeze was blowing from the ocean. Yes, all in all, very peaceful.

“Damn! How am I supposed to get this?”

I punched the exercise book with all the strength I could muster.

“By concentrating?” Giacomo suggested in an annoyingly calm and simultaneously slightly amused voice. “Perhaps if we chose an example, something that is familiar to you, something you can relate to...”

“How should any of this be familiar to me? (30 - 5) × x = 75... how am I supposed to know what x is if it doesn't say what it is anywhere?”

“That's what solving equations is all about. Let's see, what would be a good example... do you shop for clothes often?”

“I wish,” I mumbled, not very pleased by the subject change. “My mom buys all my clothes, or tells me what to buy. Do you think otherwise I would be dressed like this?” With disgust, I pointed towards the woolen sweater and the long brown skirt I was wearing.

“Your mother is very... conservative?” Giacomo asked, looking me up and down, apparently instinctively aware that this was a tender subject.

“You can say that again. And she holds the purse strings. If I had any money of my own...”

“Ah, so you would like to shop for clothes? Have you imagined doing it?”

“What else do you think I'd do during Sunday service?”

“Well then,” Giacomo said, “Imagine that you want to buy some Prada dresses.”

A dull moan of longing escaped me.

“Giacomo, why are you doing this to me? Isn't math torture enough?”

“Imagine that you want to buy some Prada dresses,” he repeated, “Each dress normally is 30 Dollars, but they're on sale today, so you can get them for only 25 Dollars.”

“25 Dollars.” My voice was toneless. “A Prada dress for 25 Dollars. Tell me, Giacomo, have you ever entered a women's clothing store?”

“No.”

“Well, I didn't think so. “

“Shall we get back to the subject? 30 minus 5 makes 25.”

“Thank you,” I said acidly. “That much I know.”

“Good. You now know that each dress costs 25 Dollars. And you have 75 Dollars in your purse. How many dresses can you buy?”

“Three of course! What has that got to do with...” My voice dwindles as I stared down at the numbers: 30 – 5, 75.

“Three?”, I asked, carefully. “The number I'm looking for, this x, it's three?”

Giacomo leaned back, grinning.

And so it went on and on. The Prada dresses became exceedingly more numerous and extravagantly priced. When even Giacomo couldn't justify the insane new pricing policy of the world famous provider of designer clothing anymore, we moved on from dresses to shoes and from shoes to handbags.

I only wished all of this could have been real. I would have had enough clothes to last me a lifetime. Stunned, I realized I was actually having fun – a bit. I had no doubt what the reason for that was: he was sitting across from me. Giacomo made me feel like I wasn't being tutored but rather like I was studying with someone. With a good friend, who took me for who I was and didn't lecture me.