One or Two Things I Learned About Love

Dedication

One or Two Things I Learned About Love

More Titles from Dyan Sheldon

Copyright

All
year you look forward to the summer, and when it finally comes what happens? Not much. There’s no school and it’s so hot already you sweat standing still, but that’s about it. Nothing special. Life goes on like normal here at Casa D’Angelo. This morning, the human alarm that is my little sister – shrieking as if she was being yanked through the roof by a giant Pterosaur – went off at approximately 6.31. (If my bedroom wasn’t right off the kitchen I’d avoid this, but if I didn’t sleep in the old pantry I’d have to share with her. Which is worse. I’d rather sleep in a tree.) Anyway, 6.31 was an improvement on yesterday. Yesterday, Zelda woke me up at 6.17 because the cat was on her chair. Today, it wasn’t anything that exciting. She was having a meltdown because a cornflake missed her bowl and landed on the table. (NIGHTMARE ON LEBANON ROAD! Everybody head for the hills!) So then she got mad because I laughed at her. My mother pretended to bang her head on the fridge. (I think she was pretending. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.) A start like that and you have a pretty good idea what the rest of the day’s going to be like. If I didn’t have to go to work and lived in a house with air conditioning, I would’ve gone back to bed.

The farm stand doesn’t have AC either, naturally, but the traffic creates a breeze. We had the usual beach trade, but otherwise it was a quiet day. Which gave me and Ely a chance to practise our juggling without the risk of hitting someone. The major drama was when the big black cat that lives up the road caught another seagull. There were so many feathers it looked like it was snowing. And there was enough shrieking for a horror movie (most of it mine). This is the third one that cat’s caught so far and we’re still in June. Ely’s calling the cat Monsanto.

The lanes have AC, of course, so the whole Lebanon Road Mob went bowling tonight – Nomi, Jax, Sara, Kruger, Cristina, Maggie and Grady, the guy Maggie’s been seeing the last few weeks. Even Louie, since Mr Kitosky’s fishing in Canada. Normally, of course, Louie’s banned because he videoed Mr Kitosky pushing Mr Ledbetter down the lane and into the pins at last year’s tournament and put it on YouTube. (I’ve never seen anybody turn that shade of red before. It was truly awe-inspiring! I thought Mr K was going to have a heart attack.) Louie says that it isn’t unusual to have to suffer for your art. Mr Kitosky said if he ever catches Louie with a camera in his hands again, he’ll teach him what suffering really is.

Back home to sweat and reacquaint myself with hysteria. My family can make a blood-and-tears tragedy out of losing a key. Tonight’s big drama was because when Gus’s date came to pick her up, Dad called him Elroy. As in, “Hi, there, Elroy. Nice to see you again.” Elroy was last week. This one’s called Zak. Gus laughed at the time, but she went ballistic when she got home. She said sometimes she thinks Dad embarrasses her on purpose. (He doesn’t.) Dad said it’s not his fault that Gus is a serial dater, and if she wants him to remember the names of all the boys she goes out with she should either make them wear name tags or date boys who don’t look so much like each other. She said maybe she should start dating girls. (It wouldn’t make any difference. He still wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.) I said to Dad it must be a great relief to him that his middle daughter only ever had two and a half dates in her whole life. He said when were they? I can’t blame him for forgetting. They weren’t exactly worth remembering. (Only I probably will because it’s starting to look like they’re the only dates I’ll ever have.)

I was hoping something wonderful would happen this summer. Now I just hope I don’t melt.

This
morning the screaming that woke me up was Gus, not Zelda. Gus couldn’t find her new sandals. Obviously, I must have taken them to bed with me. Other people take the stuffed rabbit they had when they were little. I take my sister’s shoes. I told her to get real and leave me alone. She wouldn’t budge. (If there’s one way my sisters are alike it’s that they’re both as stubborn as bloodstains.) Gus said she’d looked EVERYWHERE. She couldn’t go to work until she found them. I suggested (reasonably) that she wear something else. It’s not like she only has one pair of shoes. (She could open a store. No, she could open a chain.) Gus said she didn’t want to wear something else. Of course. If you ask me, it’s not just Zelda who has issues. Gus is clinically irrational. She wouldn’t stop screaming. “I mean it, Hildy! You’d better give me back my shoes!” When she tries, Gus can yell loud enough to be heard in Alaska. I pictured all these Inuits looking puzzled and trying to figure out who Hildy was. That made me laugh. Which made her even madder. The sandals were under the porch swing. Mom found them. I’m glad I’m staying at Nomi’s tonight. Mr and Mrs Slevka went to some big antiques fair to sell old jars and won’t be back till tomorrow. Nomi may be well known for her feistiness and her big mouth (my gran says that not only would Nomi argue with the Devil himself, she’d win), but she’s terrified of being home alone. Even with the new alarm Mr Slevka put in. Which is fine with me. The Slevkas don’t have AC either (because Nomi’s father has principles about air conditioning, not because he’s cheap), but next to Casa D’Angelo it’s like going from a war zone to a twenty-star holiday resort.

Went to my pottery class this morning, but it was too hot for our usual Saturday tennis match. We all agreed we’d rather walk to Canada on stilts. So Nomi and I decided to go into town. The stores are all air-conditioned of course. Mom said “Why don’t you take Zelda with you?” (She has to ask?) Zelda wanted to know if we were going to talk about boys all afternoon. I said no, we were going to be discussing the international monetary crisis. She threw a purple plastic Astrodon at me and put on her sandals.

The gift store’s selling fans! Not the kind you plug in. The old-fashioned kind you flap back and forth in front of your face. Mrs Gorrie bought a case when the first Zorro movie came out. She thought the movie would start a trend. Only it didn’t. It’s not exactly like having AC or even an electric fan, but you can carry it around with you and at least it moves the air around. So psychologically it makes you feel better. Mrs Gorrie says it just proves there really is a good side to everything, even global warming, because now the fans are selling faster than water in a drought. Nomi and I both got one. I would’ve bought one for Zelda, but she tried mine and right away hit herself in the eye with it, so I didn’t bother.

Went to Maggie’s tonight for a barbecue. Her mother says it’s too hot to cook in the house. (Maggie says Mrs Pryce is afraid the heat’s going to make the microwave explode.) Sara and Kruger had a band rehearsal, so it was the rest of the Mob, including Grady. Mr Pryce was in charge as usual, even though he always manages to set something on fire (besides the food). It’s mostly an oven glove or a deckchair or the grass – some ordinary thing you find around your average backyard. But this time he set himself on fire. He was flipping chicken and his
Licensed to Grill
apron suddenly went up in flames. Grady said that you’d think they’d at least make them flame-retardant, wouldn’t you? Mr Pryce was only saved from a fate worse than death by quick thinking from me and Jax. We threw the dog’s wading pool on him. Louie, of course, filmed the whole thing. Mr Pryce said he hoped Louie wasn’t going to make one of his funny videos out of it, hahahaha. Louie said, “Mr Pryce, would I put you on YouTube soaking wet, covered in dog hair and holding a chicken wing in the air?” Mr Pryce thought that meant “No.”

Nomi and I had our new fans with us. Jax said that if they didn’t do much to cool us off at least you could swat flies with them. Entertained everybody for approximately 59 seconds by juggling lemons. One of them landed in Mr Pryce’s drink. He said it might be a while before any circus calls me. Louie said I might consider a career as a bombardier.

The new alarm was going off when we got back to Nomi’s. Mr Janofski next door was sitting on his front porch in his bathrobe and pyjamas, looking like a really long sleepless night. (Mr J’s a big man who probably would’ve been a bull if he wasn’t a human, but his pyjamas are pink!) We started running to the house as soon as we saw him. Nomi unlocked the door and turned off the alarm. Mr Janofski said next time it happens he’s breaking in and ripping it out with his bare hands. Nomi thinks he means it. He used to be in the Marines.

Woken
up by the alarm. And Mr Janofski roaring, “That does it!” Nomi figures the vibration of the newspaper hitting the porch must’ve set it off. She leapt out of bed like a gazelle being chased by a lion and turned it off before Mr Janofski got out of his front door. Left it off and escaped to the tranquility and calm that is Sunia Kreple’s yoga class, even though Sunia doesn’t have so much as a fan in the new studio because she says the sound would break the transcendental flow of energy (and AC would shatter it completely). But like Nomi said, it’s always hot in India where they’ve been doing yoga for hundreds of years and it hasn’t killed them, so what the heck. Watched sweat drip off me in Downward Dog but at least it was tranquil.