One or Two Things I Learned About Love (23 page)

Connor called when he got home. He said he really misses me. He can’t wait till tomorrow. I said tomorrow? He said yeah. He thinks we’re due a special Moonlight Boat Ride Night. I was thinking I was due a Making Things Out Of Clay Night. But tomorrow is day 22. “Twenty-two and I’m feeling blue,” said Connor. I said I can’t wait either.

Spent
the day over at Gran’s. She worked in her garden while I mowed the lawn. When I was done, there were three texts from Connor. He wanted a picture of me with the mower. Gran wanted to know why. Hasn’t he ever seen a lawnmower or doesn’t he believe that I’m cutting her grass? I said of course he believes me. It makes him feel like we’re together if I send him a picture. Gran said but you’re not together. He’s at the mall and you’re with me. I said anybody would think she’s never been in love. She said she was starting to think that she hasn’t. She didn’t see Grandpa Jim for two years after he went to Vietnam and she didn’t forget what he looked like for even half a second. I said that that was a long time ago. You didn’t even have PCs then. Now we have the technology to always be in touch and Connor thinks we should use it. Gran said it’s like using a bomb to kill a mosquito. And then you know what she did? She took my phone away! (She’s really quick for an old lady.) She said she’d had enough of my age-of-communication nonsense. We were going to have iced tea and cookies and talk like people used to do in the ancient time when everybody had a few friends they saw regularly and not 300 that they never see. (If you ask me, she knows more about Facebook than she lets on.) “We’re going to look at each other and give each other all our attention. I’m not stopping in the middle of every other sentence while you text your boyfriend.” So we had our tea and talked and she told me some really funny stories about my dad that I hadn’t heard before and then she got out some of her photo albums. We were looking at them when the bell rang. I figured it must be one of her neighbours, but when she opened the door I heard her say, “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You must be Connor.” You could’ve knocked me over with a leaf of lettuce! Connor said he got off earlier than usual so he thought he’d pick me up at my grandmother’s instead of waiting for me to go home. He would’ve told me but I wasn’t answering my phone. Usually that would make him all grunty and grumpy but instead he was in a totally good mood. Really charming and sweet. We hung out with Gran for a while and then we went out to the lake. We stopped at the deli for some picnic stuff. I could see at least five guys inside so I told Connor I was wiped out from giving Gran’s grass a crew cut and I made him go alone while I sort of slumped down in my seat and closed my eyes. I figured that was safer than going with him. I didn’t want to ruin the evening because my eyes were wandering. And it was the right thing to do because we had a perfect night. So we didn’t get too depressed about how the summer’s almost over, we started planning stuff for the Fall and winter. His school always has a hayride in September. And there’s the Halloween dance. And the Christmas dance. And ice-skating. And sledding. And his dad has a skidoo. Connor says even though we’ll mainly only see each other on weekends, we can still talk every night. And text. And send pictures. He figures it was really fate, not iced tea that drowned my old phone. I said and was it fate or my mom who told you where my grandmother lives? He said neither. He always knows where I am. His heart tells him. (How romantic is that?)

Lovelovelovelovelove…

My
mom wanted to know why I wasn’t considerate enough to tell Gran that Connor was coming to her house. I said because I didn’t know. She said well you could at least’ve told her you gave him her address. So if he showed up when I wasn’t there she didn’t think he was a burglar or a conman. I said that I didn’t give it to him. She said, “Oh.”

I had a really good day yesterday and a really terrific night last night but I should’ve known somebody would ruin it for me. Meet Ely Weimer, the human equivalent of a hurricane wiping out the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Everything was OK in the morning. We were Superman-during-a-crime-wave busy. It was as if everybody around here woke up with one thought in their minds: Go to the Eden Farm stand and BUY corn (and pick up some tomatoes while you’re there). Which meant that Ely’s and my conversation was pretty limited.
Could you pass me some bags? I’ll get the lettuce. We’re going to need more parsley. That was my foot.
But there was a lull in the afternoon. And that’s when Ely suddenly asked me why Connor doesn’t like him. This diary will go to my grave with me, so I’m going to be totally honest. As soon as he said it I knew it was true. But I didn’t want it to be. I want Connor to like my friends. And I want them to like him. So I asked Ely what made him say that. Ely said it’s something in the way Connor turns to stone and doesn’t speak when he’s around him. And those looks. Like everything on the stand is mouldering rotten. I told Ely he’s imagining things. He’s only seen Connor a couple of times and we’re usually in a hurry. And Connor’s not an extrovert who can run around dressed as a root vegetable. He’s shy. Ely said he works in retail, how shy can he be? I said it’s different when you have a script. You know: tea, coffee, cinnamon, chocolate? Ely said he’s not taking it personally. He gets the impression that Connor doesn’t like any of my friends. Ely couldn’t know how Connor feels about Nomi, Maggie, Cristina and Sara. He couldn’t. So I said like who, exactly? Ely said he doesn’t like Louie. I laughed. Oh, please… Who told you that? He said Louie. Louie told Ely that Connor treats him like he’s contagious. I said that’s Louie’s warped and overactive imagination. Louie’s only met him a couple of times too. Ely said plus Louie says he never sees me any more and he knows that’s because of Connor. I said that’s not true. That he never sees me. I mean, duh! He lives across the street. I see him all the time. I saw him just this morning getting Scorsese out of a tree. And I’ve been to Movie Club and we had a fire pit the other night. Good grief. I could only see him more if he lived with me. Ely wanted to know if I know that my left eyebrow twitches when I lie.

I told Connor that Ely doesn’t think he likes him. Just to see what he’d say. Connor said he doesn’t like Ely. So I asked him what that was based on since he doesn’t exactly know Ely. Connor said he knows enough. I said are we talking about the carrot? Because I know he doesn’t like the carrot. He said the carrot costume did make him think Ely’s a loser or at least a serious geek, but mainly it’s because he can’t get all excited about my old boyfriends. Except in a negative way. Maybe I think that’s immature but that’s how he feels. It’s like a hot knife in his heart every time he sees me with Ely. I was so surprised that if a dust mite had bumped into me I would’ve collapsed in a heap. I reminded Connor that I don’t have any old boyfriends. I’ve never even had a young one until now. Why would he think that Ely and I had gone out together? Connor gave me this look. If I’d been a scab he would’ve picked me. He said, “Because that’s what you said.” I did? When did I say that? Maybe Connor’s going to be a lawyer like his father because he sure as sunrise looked as if he was cross-examining a defendant.
But didn’t you say in your statement that on the night in question you never left your house…?
Connor said, “You told me Ely’s interesting.” And that’s me saying Ely was an ex-boyfriend? I am also on record as saying that my grandmother, Mrs Gorrie in the gift store and Sunia Kreple are interesting people. Did he think I’d been dating them too? Connor said not to be ridiculous. If a girl says a boy is interesting it obviously means something. I said that’s true. It means he’s interesting. And Ely is. He’s smart and funny and he knows a lot about growing cycles. Connor sees how Ely and I are together. I said yeah, the basis for a salad. Connor said he didn’t want to fight about it. It’s day 21. (
It’s almost done…
) So as long as I swear it’s over between me and Ely he’s willing to put it behind us. But he doesn’t have to like him. I didn’t have the strength to bring up Louie.

I
don’t remember any bad dreams, but I woke up in a pensive mood. It makes me really sad that I cause Connor so much suffering. I don’t mean to. I want to make him happy. But it doesn’t look like I know how. I guess I never realized how much there is to learn about guys. They really should come with a manual. Like a computer.
Boyfriends for Beginners
.
Dating for Dummies
. Or they should share the one they all use. I feel like I’m on a learning curve that’s steeper than the Andes. Relationships are about a million times trickier than I thought. I guess I always figured you met somebody, and you liked him and he liked you, and you thought he was cute and he thought you were cute, and the same things made you laugh or you shared a passion for skeet shooting, stuff like that, and so you got together. Of course you’d have arguments and differences. I haven’t spent my life with Vinny and Luisa, the Duelling D’Angelos, not to know that. You’re not always going to see eye-to-eye with
anybody
. Even twins must disagree sometimes. Never mind people from different homes and sexes. You expect that. But nobody warned me about how much misunderstanding and hurt there can be. Just incidentally. Because you’re breathing or tend to keep your eyes open when you’re awake. Don’t other people have these problems or are they just not talking about them? My gran says that when she was a kid no one ever talked about sex. There was a big conspiracy of silence. She even remembers when she was little being told that the stork brings babies. The stork! A bird? A bird brings human babies? How is that supposed to work? Gran says people thought that if you didn’t know anything about sex, you wouldn’t do it. Is it something like that with relationships? That people don’t talk about how hard they are because they think that if you knew the truth you would never want to have one? But maybe it all depends on how much you love each other. Like Nomi and Jax. They like each other, but I don’t think they’re in love. I mean, a lot of Nomi’s friends are boys but I’ve never seen Jax act like if she laughed with Louie or punched Grady somebody was hacking at his heart with a meat cleaver. But Connor and I are in love. He said that if anything happened to me he wouldn’t want to go on living. I don’t want to make him suffer or anything but that’s pretty romantic, isn’t it? We must really be in love.