A Counter or Table of Contents?

I’m not exactly sure how to describe this.

I’ve created a flash portfolio, it probably does not entail the best coding but hopefully it is not too awkward or stupid.

In this portfolio I designate a number to each item of work. There are ten. I want an easy way to have the number change and correspond to the item you are viewing. I also want this number to be displayed on my root swf and timeline.

I have a root swf that loads an external swf with audio for the audio section and a content swf with the rest of the information (images, etc).

What I have currently, which i’m sure is poor, is when you go to a frame in the content swf with use of a button, its onRelease changes the frame for a item_number *movie clip in the _root timeline. *The item_number movieclip just has static text showing a number on different frames.
I’m embarassed to show my code. Is it necessary?