“But Holly’s devastated!” I cried. I can’t believe he couldn’t see that! I mean, it’s true I’ve known Holly since the first grade when her family moved onto my street and I went over and rang the bell and asked if they had any little girls for me to play with.
But Mark’s been living with her for the past two years! You would think he’d know her at least as well as I do! I mean, they sleep in the same bed!
“Holly’s just tired,” Mark said. “She’s beat, same as me. It’s been kind of a long day.”
“Then…” I have to admit, I had tears in my own eyes, as if I had just watched the end of Babe or an episode of Seventh Heaven , “you’re not thinking of calling it off?”
“The wedding?” Mark looked down at me like I was crazy. “No way. Why would I do that?”
“Well, because—”
And then, before I could stop myself, it all came tumbling out. The truth. About his friend Cal.
I know it wasn’t very nice of me. To tattle, I mean. Especially to a groom about his best man. Especially just thirty-six hours before the wedding.
But still. Cal totally deserves it. Who does he think he is, anyway, with his phenylethylamine and his thinking he can sabotage my best friend’s wedding by planting doubts in her—or worse, her husband-tobe’s—head?
Mark listened to everything I had to say (I talked really sotto voce , so Cal, still down on the terrazza, wouldn’t overhear) and, when I was done, he did the weirdest thing.
He threw back his head, and laughed.
Yes! Actually laughed! Like it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard!
Frankly, I don’t see what was so funny. I mean, if I had been about to get married, and I found out one of my friends was planning on using whatever influence she had over me to talk me out of it—
Well, that’s just ridiculous, because if I were set on marrying someone, no one would be able to talk me out of it.
Which is exactly what Mark said to me.
Mark: “Janie, Cal’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had. But no one is going to talk me out of marrying Holly. Particularly not someone whose own marriage was such a spectacular disaster.”
This information dried my tears right up.
And I know it was really wrong of me, but I totally couldn’t help going, “You knew Valerie, Cal’s ex?”
Mark: “Knew her? Yeah, I knew her. About as well as he did, anyway. And for about as long. I was there the night they met.”
Me: (extremely interested in this) “Really? And was she really beautiful? She was a model, right?”
Mark just shrugged. I have to admit, he didn’t look so hot. But maybe it was the light from the harsh Italian bulb inside a pinky shade.
Mark: “She was all right. Not my type. Tall and blonde and skinny. You know. Typical model.”
Me: (nodding sympathetically) “And very, very dumb, right?”
Mark: “Well, not so dumb that she didn’t know she’d latched onto a guy flush with his first-ever paycheck. And the whole modeling thing wasn’t going as well as she’d have liked. Contrary to what she was apparently led to believe by the Barbizon School or wherever she trained, modeling is quite hard. You have to get up early. And she didn’t like that.”
Wow! Mark really hated Cal’s wife! He hardly EVER says anything bad about anyone, seeing as how he’s, you know, nice and all.
“So…” I still wasn’t sure it was safe to leave Mark alone with his friend. “If Cal DOES try to talk you out of marrying Holly…”
“He’s not going to try any such thing,” Mark said. But at my skeptically raised eyebrows, he added, “Fine, well, he can try, but it won’t work. I can’t believe you, of all people, would even think such a thing is possible, Janie. I love Holly, and no one’s going to talk me out of marrying her. Not Cal. Not my mother. Not even Holly’s mother. Nothing is going to stand in the way of our doing it. NOTHING.”
Sadly, the conclusion of this very inspiring speech was somewhat anti-climactic, since about the time he uttered the words ‘Holly’s mother,’ Mark got kind of green around the gills, and went, “Um. Excuse me. I don’t feel so hot all of a sudden” and ducked into the bathroom, from which some explosive sounds soon emanated.
So I wished him well and left him for my own room, happy in the knowledge that, should Cal try anything, Mark, at least, would stay strong.
As for Holly… well, we’ll have to see. I THINK she knows she’s doing the right thing.
I’ll work on her some more in the car tomorrow.
Now to let Cal Langdon know he won’t be able to talk Mark out of it….
Travel Diary of Jane Harris
Travel Diary of
Jane Harris
Oh my God, you’ll never guess what I just caught Cal Langdon doing!!!! Mr. Hardened News Journalist was down on the terrazza, holding out a plate of Zio Matteo’s tuna to all of these scrawny stray cats that had come slinking over to the villa from the stables.
He jumped like I’d shot him when I said his name, and the cats all ran, but I saw them.
Oh, I saw them, all right.
Between the being-afraid-of-snakes thing, and now a soft spot for cats, I guess Mr. No Heart might just have one after all.
Still, I didn’t let on that I knew. About his heart, I mean. Instead, I told him—because I couldn’t help myself—that I’d spoken to Mark, and that he (Cal) was living in a fantasy world if he thought he could talk him (Mark) out of marrying Holly on Wednesday.
To my surprise, Cal just totally ignored that. Instead— while staring at my Christian Louboutins, as usual—he asked me instead if I knew Indian women sometimes decorate their feet with henna.
????????????
There is something seriously wrong with this guy.
Me: “Um, no. But I do know if they show their ankles in public, they can be punished by having their feet cut off. Why don’t you write a book about how unfair that is, instead of what’s going to happen to the Saudis when the oil runs out?”
Caclass="underline" (finally looking away from my feet) “Do you think women’s lives there are going to get easier when their country is essentially shut off from contact with the outside world, due to their no longer having a product we want to exploit? Or do you think they’ll get harder?”
Me: “Harder, obviously. But what can I do about it? Use fewer water bottles?”
Caclass="underline" “Yes, overconsumption of petroleum-based products is a leading cause of global warming.”
Seriously, I can’t believe he ever got any woman to marry him. I mean, with a line like that. Even a model.
Hey, maybe that’s why he only dates foreigners now. Because they can’t tell what’s coming out of his mouth.
Me: “Well, then maybe we’d better just use it all up and get it over with so we run out already and can go back to how things were before.”
Caclass="underline" “You mean before they started bottling spring water and selling it for a buck fifty a pop and pretending it’s better for you than tap?”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: “I don’t know. You’re the one who wrote a book about it. Why do you keep looking at my feet, anyway?”
Caclass="underline" “Why do you keep looking at my crotch?”
I SWEAR TO GOD!!! THAT IS WHAT HE ASKED ME!!!!
Then THANK GOD Peter showed up from out of nowhere and went, “Jane Harris, I am hearing your woice and knew you vere avake. Now will you be drawing me the sketches of Vundercat you promised for my Veb site?” and handed me a sketch pad and some markers.
So I said, “Of course, Peter,” in my most gracious voice— even though I was FREAKING OUT about the crotch thing— and drew him about fifty Wondercat sketches, while Cal sat there scowling in the candlelight and going, “Peter, shouldn’t you be in bed by now? Don’t you have school in the morning?”