And Peter was all, “I am here on official business with the mayor.”
And the girl started laughing and said, “What business can you have with my fazzer?”
And everything was suddenly SO clear to me, just from those—let me see—OK, eight little words. You know, that Peter adores Annika with a passion that cannot be denied, and that she wants him, too, but Peter isn’t considered cool enough to date in their social set, and so she has to act scornful towards him.
It was all so obvious and sad.
Then the mayor hung up the phone and went, “Annika. Shush.”
Then he and Frau Schumacher started going at it in Italian, so I used the opportunity to ask Peter who the girl was, sotto voce (Italian for “in a soft voice.” I am really getting this language down, if I do say so myself).
And he was like, his voice dripping with (obviously feigned) scorn, “Zat’s Annika. She is the mayor’s daughter. She zinks she is queen of all of Castelfidardo even zo she is not.”
And I asked Peter if he and Annika went to school together, and he told me he goes to “Internet school” because the schools in Castelfidardo aren’t “adwanced” enough for him, and that he can’t go to school back in Germany because there’s no one there for him to live with, his “fazzer” currently being “in the jail.”
In the jail! Peter’s dad—Frau Schumacher’s grandson—is in the jail!
For what, I don’t know. But now I understand why it is that Peter is able to hang around us all day. Annika, presumably, was on her (three-hour) lunch break from school. Can you imagine all the trouble American teens could get up to if we gave them a three-hour lunch break? And all of the malls were CLOSED during it? My God, civilization as we know it would break down completely.
Anyway, after the mayor and Frau S. negotiated their little compromise, there was a lot of cheering and relieved sighs (and, from Cal Langdon, a frown), so I took the opportunity to lean down and give Peter a peck on the cheek—to thank him, you know, since if he hadn’t gone and got his great-grandmother, none of this would have happened.
And, while Peter turned bright red, I had the pleasure of seeing Annika, who’d witnessed the kiss, scowl prettily.
Score one for Peter.
Poor Annika. One of these days she’s going to wake up and realize Peter was the one for her. Only by the time that happens, Peter will have his own software company and be making millions and be dating a starlet from some Fox sitcom… or whatever the Italian equivalent of Fox might be.
Cal Langdon just barked, “You’ll get it when you get it, Art,” into his phone.
God. He is so Type A. He really needs to learn to chill, like me, or he’s going to have a coronary before he’s forty.
And how dare he suggest that there’s something wrong with MY parents for staying together so long? I asked him while we were in the hallway outside the mayor’s office, out of earshot of Holly, how long HIS parents stayed together, and he said, “They were married twenty years, and are much happier people now that they’ve gone their separate ways.”
Which is all very well and good for them, but if Cal Langdon were MY kid, I’d want to get away from him, too. No wonder they split up. The North Pole and Antarctica aren’t far enough to get away from that voice: “I told you, Arthur, I will have the proposal for you when I get back. No, not the DAY I get back. But a few weeks later—yes, well, I still haven’t figured out exactly what I’m going to write about. No, not dirty diamonds. No, I’m not going to Angola—”
Some women, I suppose, might find Cal Langdon’s voice sexy. And IT is kind of deep and gravelly, in a Robert Redford kind of way.
But the stuff he SAYS with it! EW!
And OK, he’s hot. I mean, I’m not going to lie and say he’s not. All I have to do to KNOW that isn’t true is flip back to the beginning of this journal and read the part where I first saw him—God, was that really only four days ago? It seems like months—to know that initially, I thought Cal Langdon was hot.
And it’s true that even now, knowing what I do about him, he still has his moments. Like when he pried my foot out of that crevasse between the cobblestones, and his whole hand fit around my ankle.
And sometimes when he looks at me with those too-blue eyes, it seems like there’s a light shining from out of his head, like a jack-o’-lantern—a light only I can see, and which makes it very hard to maintain eye contact.
But still. In the car on the way back from Castelfidardo, I made a comment about how ludicrous it is that everything in this country closes from noon until four, sometimes five, every single day, and that really, it isn’t any wonder that America is a superpower and Italy isn’t, given that we only take half-hour lunches, for the most part.
And Mr. I Know Everything There Is To Know in the Entire Universe has the nerve to go, “Believe me, if the average temperature in America during the summer months was forty degrees Celsius, we’d be shutting down everything between noon and four as well.”
Whoa! I am sorry, but that is nothing but showing off. CELSIUS? What American knows how to tell the temperature in Celsius?
OK, enough ranting against Cal Langdon. Not while I’ve got all this delicious sun to bask in. It’s actually kind of hard to get worked up about anything, you know, with this sun beating down and the palm fronds overhead swaying gently in the breeze from the sea—carrying with it, as always, that slight hint of horse manure—and the only sounds those of bees buzzing and the crystal blue water in the pool gently rippling and Cal pecking at his Blackberry.
The sun is so hot, in fact, it seems to seep into your skin like thick heavy lotion. Really, it’s hard to tell whether it’s the bianco frizzante (SOOOOO good mixed with a little Orangina) or the sun, but I really feel, I don’t know, like nothing matters right now… not even what happens to Dr. Kovac on ER. I feel like I could just lie here forever….
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e-mails
To: Cal Langdon <cal.langdon@thenyjournal.com>
Fr: Arthur Pendergast <a.pendergast@rawlingspress.com>
Re: The Book
Would you cool it? I’m not trying to bust your chops. I know you’ve got a lot going on right now. Hell, if I’d moved back to the States after a ten-year absence, and had to find a place to live, furniture to put in it, buy a car, etc., I’d be going stark raving mad.
Well, not really, since I’d just leave all that to my wife. But you don’t have a wife. So don’t worry about it.
Just, you know. If you could give me a rough idea of what you’re thinking about doing for your second book. That would be nice.
Arthur Pendergast
Senior Editor
Rawlings Press
1418 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10019
212-555-8764
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To: Jane Harris <jane@wondercat.com>
Fr: Holly Caputo <holly.caputo@thenyjournal.com>
Re: Did you see that?
????????????????
Holly
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To: Holly Caputo <holly.caputo@thenyjournal.com>
Fr: Jane Harris <jane@wondercat.com>
Re: Did you see that?
Hello. Aren’t you getting married the day after tomorrow? What are you doing ogling other men’s naked chests?
J
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