One or Two Things I Learned About Love (5 page)

I don’t want to get carried away or anything (Nomi says it’s not pride that goes before a fall, it’s HOPE), but I am getting kind of excited about the BD (Big Date). I want to believe that (at long last) the Hildy D’Angelo Dating Curse has been lifted. And that I’m finally going to go out with someone like other girls do. You know, instead of another immense disaster/public humiliation/waste of time/all of the above.

1
Mick Littlejohn in ninth grade. We went to a movie. Mr Littlejohn drove us there and back. Mr Littlejohn and Mick talked about football the whole time we were in the car. The last thing Mick said when we got to the movies was something about being tied with minutes left to play. When we came out two hours later, Mick got into the car and started talking about how in the very last minute some guy made a 50-yard pass and his team won 33–30. I’m not really into football (I’d rather watch a snail race at night in a fog), but that’s the kind of thing you remember. At least you do if it’s the only time you heard your date’s voice all afternoon.

2
David Schlessel in tenth grade. (This is the half date that doesn’t count.) Nomi, Sara, Cristina, Maggie and I went to the Halloween dance together. Safety in numbers. (And so you don’t have to stand there all by yourself like the last doll on the toy-store shelf on Christmas Eve.) We went as a 60s’ girl band (no instruments and we all dressed the same). David Schlessel asked me to dance. We had a couple of dances and then I said I had to sit down because it’s really hard to dance when you’re dressed like a 60s’ back-up singer. My feet were redefining the meaning of pain. We hadn’t talked while we were dancing but when I was about to limp away he all of a sudden asked me if I wanted to go out with him. I don’t know if I did or I didn’t, but I said yes. Turned out, he didn’t want to go out with me. He thought he was asking out Sara. He didn’t realize I wasn’t Sara until I showed up at the movie. He wanted to know where Sara was. I said I guessed she was probably at home. He asked if she was standing him up. I said, “Standing you up
where
?” He said, you know, breaking our date. I said I didn’t know he had a date with Sara, I was under the impression that he had a date with me. He said he really had to have his glasses checked. There was no point in wasting money on a movie, so we both went home after that. (That’s why it’s only half a date and it doesn’t count.)

3
Daryl Jonas last spring. Daryl sat next to me in math. He’s about as good at math as a skunk. He’s also immensely accident-prone. It’s practically a talent. Every week it was something else. A fractured wrist (pulling himself out of the pool). A sprained ankle (stepping off the sidewalk). A black eye (he really did slam right into a door). Daryl can’t walk into a room without knocking into something or someone. (He said his mother fines him every time he breaks something now, and Mrs Spurgeon in the cafeteria made him bring his lunch from home because he dropped his tray so many times that she refused to serve him any more.) But Daryl’s nice and funny, so I ignored all the times he knocked stuff off my desk or got himself caught in my bag, and when he asked me if I wanted to go bowling, I said yes. He broke my toe. I was lucky he didn’t ask me to go white-water rafting.

Which makes this the first time I’m going out with someone I really and truly want to go out with. And who really wants to go out with me. Someone who’s hugely attractive, super-charming and a good conversationalist. And who could walk through a china shop without putting it out of business. Sara says I shouldn’t get too excited. She says not to forget the Frog Factor. I said what do frogs have to do with the rainfall in Oklahoma? She said you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince. (She read that in a magazine while she was waiting for her mother to have her root canal.) But Cristina says there’s no point starting out expecting the worst because if you do that’s exactly what you’ll get. However, Maggie says there’s a difference between negativity and realism. She says you should hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. And Nomi says that even though Connor’s cute and there’s no evidence that he starts food fights or that his feet smell like cheese, he could still be a disappointment. That’s just the way life is. I said that’s true. Life is like that. On the other hand, he might not be a disappointment. He might be the exception that proves the rule (as Gran would say). Life is like that, too. Nomi said if she was me she probably wouldn’t hold her breath.

Mike’s agreed to swap my Thursday for her Saturday. She said no sweat. My mother wasn’t as gracious, because most of the time she needs me to help with Zelda on Saturdays since there’s no day camp. She kept saying, “You’re not going to make a habit of this, are you, Hildy?” I said, “What am I – an indentured servant?” Naturally, she ignored that. She said, “What about your pottery? You’re missing that too.” I said it’s only one day. What difference is one day going to make?

I
had a really hard time focusing at work today. I kept giving people potatoes when they asked for tomatoes, and tomatoes when they asked for potatoes. I put zucchini in with the cucumbers. I went to put a basket of onions on the table and I missed. Onions went rolling all over the parking area. Blue Eyeshadow Lady pulled in at exactly that moment. (Murphy’s Law strikes again.) She flattened about six before she finally came to a stop. Then she burst into tears. She thought she’d run over a prairie dog. Ely tried to tell her that we don’t have prairie dogs in this state but would she listen? No she would not. (Turns out she mowed one down in Colorado once and it scarred her for life.) I was holding up a squashed onion and saying, “Look! It’s not a prairie dog, it’s an edible bulb!” But she was crying too much to see it. By the time she calmed down her face was all blue. I was so stressed out after that, that I overcharged Green Pick-up Guy. “Scarlett, dear.” He held out his hand. “I thought I bought squash, not gold.” I apologized. Profusely. Later, Ely wanted to know if I was having some trouble at home or something, because I was so distracted. He said he knows how crazy families can get. (Ely’s father isn’t allowed within 40 miles of Redbank without being arrested. That’s how crazy he got.) I said it was nothing like that. I said I was finding it hard to concentrate because of the heat. No wonder none of the major inventions of the industrial age came out of tropical countries. Everybody was collapsed under palm trees, fanning themselves with giant leaves. (Unless their little sisters washed them after they dropped them in the toilet.) Ely said, “Whatever, Hildy. But I’m here if you ever need somebody to talk to.” I said I’d keep that in mind.

The main reason I was all vague and preoccupied is that I can’t decide what to wear tomorrow. Which is why I couldn’t very well tell Ely. He was thinking heartbreak and fear, and I was thinking the jungle print or the skinny jeans. If I had some clue what we’re doing I’d know how to dress. I don’t want to look like I just threw on any old thing if his idea of getting to know each other is a candlelit dinner at a nice restaurant, but I don’t want to be wearing a dress and good shoes if we’re going clamming.

Gus won’t let me borrow her super-best peach silk shirt for the BD, even though it’d be perfect since silk is casual and elegant at the same time. I said that I don’t know how she can live with herself, being so selfish. She said she just about manages. And anyway, you should never go for broke the first time you go out with a guy. You want to get better and better each time he sees you. I don’t know how she ever came up with this since, except for Abe who wrecked the mailbox and Barry Lincoln (who lasted almost a whole summer), she rarely has more than two dates with the same person. I argued that if I don’t look really great there won’t be a next time. Gus said, “You weren’t wearing my peach shirt when he asked you out, were you?” Of course not. I was wearing those cotton pants I got for yoga with the geckos all over them and a D’Angelo’s Garage T-shirt. “Right,” said Gus. “So how high can his expectations be? You looked like a beach bum. You see, Hildy, it so doesn’t matter what you wear. It’s you he’s interested in, not your clothes.” This from the girl who once spent so long getting ready in the bathroom that the rest of us had to go over to the Masiados’ to use their facilities.

Have had everything out of my closet and my dresser TWICE tonight. The depressing truth is that all my summer stuff makes me look like a beach bum. A beach bum who never goes anywhere. (Well, the beach, but you’d expect that.) Except my overalls. They don’t make me look like a beach bum. They make me look like a farmer (which is OK, really, because they’re supposed to. I got them at the second-hand store to wear to work). I don’t have anything that says hot or babe. It’s all lukewarm and buddy. Nomi said she’d lend me her peach silk shirt, only she doesn’t have one. And even if she did, it would only fit me in a dream. The last time Nomi and I were even close to being the same size we were twelve. And then I kept growing and she kind of stopped. So Nomi’s what everybody calls petite or doll-like, and I look like I’d be a good basketball player (but I’m not, I always duck).

After
a restless night dreaming that I met Connor wearing the bunny suit I had when I was eight, I called Nomi as soon as I got up and she came over to help me pick out an outfit and get ready. Nomi was great. (Of course. She isn’t my best friend because nobody else applied for the job.) She dug out those white jeans I never wear because I’m afraid of bleeding in them, a plain, pale-coloured top and that woven scarf in about eight different shades of blue that Gran gave me for Christmas, which I never knew what to do with. It took hours to do my hair and everything. But when we were done I looked pretty good. Nomi said I was
definitely
all-purpose – you know, like I could go to anything from a ball game to lunch with the governor. Unfortunately, Connor’s family doesn’t live near a stadium or near the gubernatorial mansion. Where they live is on the lake over by Crow’s Cross. Connor’s surprise was that he thought it’d be a great idea if we went canoeing. (So it wasn’t either, or; it was either oar.) “You can’t get more peaceful, private and quiet than canoeing,” said Connor. (
Only in death
was what I would’ve said if he’d been Louie or Ely.) But even though I hadn’t exactly been planning on rowing across a fairly large body of water, I did think it was sweet and thoughtful of him to want to get to know me like that. Most guys would just take you to a movie, so the only thing they’d find out would be whether or not you liked popcorn. So I said what a great idea!