by Dyan Sheldon
Connor texted me first thing to see how I was feeling. I said I was much better. The doughnuts really did the trick. It’s amazing what a hit of oil and sugar can do. Maggie and Nomi wanted to know if I wanted to go shopping with them. I almost said yes. I feel like I haven’t been seeing very much of them lately. But then I remembered about not showing up at Café Olé! with my friends. So I said I was still paying the price for Eve eating that apple and better stay home. Then Mother D’Angelo noticed me lurking around the house and dumped Zelda (who was having one of her strike days from day camp) on me so she could get some work done. Realized I haven’t seen much of Gran lately either and took Zel over there. Gran said, “Long time no see.” I said I’ve been busy. She said she knew all about how busy I was. And with whom. And at the rate I’m going she’s going to be dead before I bring Connor over to meet her. I explained how he works at the coffee bar in the mall so he’s not around much. Gran said in her day a girl wouldn’t dream of dating someone her family hadn’t met. I said my family had met him. She said, “And what am I, chopped liver?”
After that the three of us sat on the porch and had lemonade and played a game of Scrabble. I’m the only one who’ll play with either of them – Zelda because of the crying and throwing things, and Gran because she makes up words. Things like woodmama – any mother animal who lives in a forest – sexycar – sports cars, because that’s why middle-aged men buy them – twotongue – politicians. Gran says it isn’t cheating, it’s being creative, but that the Scrabble Fascists who run the state tournament disqualified her. For ever. If you ask me, Gran’s way definitely makes the game more interesting. And of course Zelda’s a natural at this kind of thing (today she came up with purrson, meaning cat – which Gran says is genius). I was a little distracted while we were playing because Connor kept texting me. He wanted to know what I was doing. And where I was. Stuff like that. Gran finally figured out why my phone kept going off. She said she thought he was working. What kind of job does he have that he can spend most of his time sending messages? I said it must be a slow day. Gran said, “That phone buzzes every ten minutes. That’s not a slow day, it’s one that died in its tracks.”
Abbie Zeltig (she’s the one who makes the life-size ceramic shoes and bags) offered me a ride home from pottery tonight. She was leaving a little early but that was cool because I hadn’t had any supper and I was starving and I’d done everything that I needed to do. I was fixing myself something to eat when someone started banging on the front door like they were being chased by a pack of lions and really needed to get inside. It was Connor. “You’re here.” He looked so surprised that I laughed. I said, “I live here.” He wanted to know why I wasn’t at pottery. I had a knife in one hand and a jar of mustard in the other. “Because I’m here, making a sandwich.” He said, “But you told me you were going to be at pottery.” I said I was at pottery. He said he’d just come from the studio and nobody there knew who I was. I was still wearing my pottery clothes (clay-covered, glaze-stained overalls and a clay-covered, glaze-stained old shirt of my dad’s). I said, “Look at me, Connor. Where do you think I was if I wasn’t at the studio? Sky diving?” He couldn’t answer that one. I said, “Besides, if nobody knew who I was that’s because it’s my first time in that class because I work on Saturdays now. Remember? Did you ask the teacher? The tall woman with red hair in the jumpsuit? Mrs Chimurro knows who I am.” He didn’t see any tall redheads in jumpsuits. I asked why he didn’t tell me he was going to pick me up. He said, “Because it was supposed to be a surprise.” I said, “Well if I’d been there it would’ve been a surprise.” Connor said right, but he was the one who got the surprise because I wasn’t there. It almost sounded as if he was accusing me of something but I couldn’t figure out what. You know, since I hadn’t done anything. I said, “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Connor. Are you really saying that I wasn’t there at all?” I sure thought I was there. But maybe I imagined it. Maybe I was here all the time. In my grungy old overalls and my sneakers with the holes in the toes. Hoping he’d come by and tell me that I’d never left the house. He said I didn’t have to be so sarcastic. That wasn’t what he was saying. But he didn’t tell me what it was he was saying. I didn’t push him though. I mean what’s the point? So he came in and watched me finish making my sandwich. He had some potato chips while I ate, but aside from the crunchcrunchcrunch he was pretty quiet so I told him about my new class and how I’m going to decorate the Masiados’ mugs with little Sal and Rose Masiado figures and about Abbie Zeltig’s bags and shoes (which are pretty awesome in their way). Then we sat out on the porch for a while making physical contact. Which was super nice. And then he went home.
Nomi doesn’t think Connor surprising me at pottery is funny. She thinks he was checking up on me. I think that’s pretty funny. Why would he be checking up on me? At the pottery studio? What did he expect to find? Me kissing a kiln? Then she put on that voice she has of someone really smart explaining something really simple to someone who is as far from smart as the moon is from Portland. She said, “OK Hildy, if he wasn’t checking up on you why didn’t he tell you he was going to pick you up?” I said, “Um duh, Nomi. Because he wanted to surprise me.” She said that’s exactly what she meant. I said it was a sweet gesture. And even she had to admit that you can’t surprise someone if you tell them what you’re going to do. She said, “OK, but after he went to the studio and you weren’t there, why didn’t he call you to see where you were?” Obviously he knew where I was. I was home. That’s why he came over, isn’t it? Nomi said that I told her he acted like he hadn’t expected me to be there. I said that wasn’t what I meant. What I meant was that he wasn’t expecting me to be holding a jar of mustard. “Oh, of course. The mustard.” Nomi slapped her forehead in her dramatic way. “I forgot about the mustard. It’s a miracle he didn’t faint on the spot.”
For a change it wasn’t one of my sisters screaming her head off that woke me up this morning. What it sounded like was about two million very small reindeer racing over the roof. But it wasn’t reindeer, it was rain without the deer. Farmer John said it’s about time we had a good soak. Ely said that’s what they said when the forty days and forty nights of rain in the Bible started. “Yea, we could do with a deluge.” Farmer John wanted to know if Ely was going on about climate change again. Ely said yes. So it was a pretty quiet day at work since there weren’t exactly tons of people going to the beach. Like none. But it gave me and Ely a chance to practise our double three-potato cascade. By the time we got tired of that there were five texts from Connor. It’s really weird but reading them made me feel like I wasn’t standing in the rain with my sneakers working more as buckets full of water than shoes, but somewhere warm and dry and really cosy. Probably with a fire and a hot drink.
I was FINALLY going to do some editing with Louie tonight but it stopped raining and Connor wanted to have a Harbour Lights Night where we sit on the pier and watch the lights come on across the water. He said he was a little bummed out last night because I wasn’t where I’d said I’d be. He wanted to make it up to me. Who could say no? It was a perfect evening, and the harbour was busy. Lots of boats coming in and going out. Couples strolling around. Guys fishing. It was really romantic. Until Connor fell in. He went to get us some ice cream and I was sitting under the little pavilion thing at the very end of the pier, kind of pretending I was on the bow of a ship sailing into the sunset while I waited for him to come back. Then all of a sudden there was this big splash and everybody started shouting and running. It wasn’t until they hauled him out that I realized who it was. Connor said it was my fault. I couldn’t see how it was my fault when all I was doing was just sitting there. I said what am I, psychokinetic? He said maybe I was psycho-something. I asked what that was supposed to mean. He said that it meant the reason he fell off the pier was that he’d turned to see who I was staring at and tripped. He didn’t say it like a question but I could tell that it was one. I said I wasn’t staring at anybody, I
was just thinking. He said that wasn’t what it looked like to him. But I can’t help that, can I? What does he want me to do? Go around blindfolded? Wear a bag over my head? What if I suffocated? TEEN DIES SO HER BOYFRIEND DOESN’T THINK SHE’S LOOKING AT FISHERMEN. How would he feel then? He could be charged with manslaughter. At the very least, after all the newspaper publicity and the TV specials and interviews with my friends and family, he and his folks would have to move. Probably to Alaska. And change their name. His parents wouldn’t be too happy about that. He said if I was trying to cheer him up it wasn’t working. Loaned him an old sweatshirt and pants of my dad’s so he didn’t catch pneumonia driving home.
Nomi thought it was hilarious that Connor fell in the bay. (A little too hilarious, if you ask me. I did point out that he could’ve been really hurt. Even if all he hit was a rowboat.) She couldn’t figure out how he managed to do it since it’s pretty clear which is the dock and which is the water. I said I guess he wasn’t looking where he was going. Decided against mentioning that it was my fault.
Connor called me at work to say he’d dried out and was sorry he did his world-famous impersonation of the Grinch with a bee up his nose last night, but it was a pretty big shock suddenly finding himself in the bay like that. I said you’ve been falling in water since our first date. You’d think you’d be used to it by now. He thought that was hilarious. I’d already told Nomi I’d hang out with her tonight, but to make up for drowning my ice cream and everything Connor wanted to take me to this dance down at the boat club at the lake. So I told her I forgot I already had a date. She said I’ve established a link between dating and senility. Hahaha.
It was really cool at the club. There were coloured lights with paper lanterns that looked like boats and a DJ. We had a great time while we were dancing. But then there was a break and everybody kept coming up to us to say hello. It made me really nervous. You know, because of last night and what Connor said about Louie and what Nomi said about Connor checking up on me at pottery and everything. I didn’t want to do anything to upset him. But all these people kept trying to talk to me. Guys and girls. I kept willing them to go away, but they kept coming. It was like I was wearing a sign that said: Come talk to me and drive my boyfriend nuts. I got so stressed I finally escaped to the ladies’ room. I locked myself in a stall and I stayed there till I heard the music starting up again. I did that all night long. Connor wanted to know if I was all right. I said it was just a girl thing. When we left the dance we walked a little along the lake. It makes me uncomfortable when there are other people around, but when it’s just us it’s pure bliss. Connor said that even though he has a brother and everything he’s always felt kind of alone. Until now. I said me too.
Today’s game was cancelled because it was raining again. Connor said they figured the only sport you could do in this weather was extreme white-water rafting. So I went over to his house and hung out. We fooled around with our Facebook pages. We put a picture of us mugging on our walls. And then I used his computer and he used his phone and we chatted online even though we were sitting next to each other. It was hilarious. Later, we were making bagel pizzas when Connor suddenly asked if we were going to Movie Club tonight. To tell you the truth, I’d kind of put the idea of Movie Club out of my head. Possibly for ever. You know, because he seemed about as enthusiastic about it as if I’d suggested walking over hot coals. He said it wasn’t him who didn’t want to go. He’s been waiting to meet all my friends. Unless there was some reason I didn’t want to introduce him to them. Was there? Which made it sound like he’d been begging me to go to Movie Club and I wouldn’t let him. But all I said was, “Sure. Let’s go. They’re all dying to meet you too.”
It was a full house. (Something happened to one of their amps so even Sara and Kruger showed up.) Of course I forgot about all the ridicule and teasing we were going to be in for. Look who’s here! To what do we owe this honour? You know, you look really familiar. Don’t tell me this is Mr Coffee! After all these years! Even Grady got in on it. He said he really thought I’d made this boyfriend of mine up. Then Louie started to introduce Connor to everybody and pretended he couldn’t remember his name. Oh hahafreakingha! It was gruesome. When that form of torture was over the boys started telling me what I’d been missing, and how last week Scorsese and Hitchcock went nuts when they were watching American Werewolf in London, and complaining because I didn’t bring any cookies. I’ve noticed that when Connor’s not happy he kind of does the human equivalent of a turtle pulling itself into its shell. So I was standing there with this big turtle shell next to me. Really hoping that at last the floor was going to do me a favour and open up and both Connor and I would fall through it. But the girls must’ve noticed that Connor was about as comfortable as somebody hanging off a bridge by his fingers because they suddenly all started talking to him. You know, in a normal, friendly way. And then we got out the snacks and everybody settled down. I figured we were home free. But we weren’t even near the front door. It would’ve been OK if it was Grady, Kruger or Jax who picked the movie, but of course it wasn’t. That would be too easy. The older I get the more I understand that whoever’s in charge of the universe doesn’t do easy. It was Louie’s choice. The movie was in black and white and had subtitles. It might as well have been performed by shadow puppets. Connor fell asleep twice. When we were leaving Louie said to him he should try drinking coffee sometime instead of just selling it. Connor didn’t exactly double up laughing. As soon as we got off the Masiados’ property he told me he doesn’t think the other guys like him. I said what makes you say that? He said it was because they all acted like they know me so much better than he does. I said well they do. He said they didn’t have to rub it in his face. I said they were just being the way they are. Connor said he hoped I didn’t think that was a recommendation for them. Especially Louie. Louie’s the worst. He thinks Louie picked that movie on purpose because he knew Connor hates movies with subtitles. And how could he possibly know that? Connor said, “You’re his big buddy. I guess you must’ve told him.” I said that was ridiculous. Louie didn’t even know that we were coming tonight. Didn’t he see how surprised everybody was? And besides, why would Louie deliberately pick a movie he knew Connor would hate? Connor said it was because Louie likes me. I said of course he likes me, we’ve been friends since we were teething. We ate dog biscuits together. When I fell in the pond the winter we were ten it was Louie who jumped in and pulled me out. He’s the brother I should’ve had (instead of the sisters I got). Connor made the same sound the vacuum makes if you suddenly unplug it when it’s on. He said he can’t believe how naïve I can be. Don’t I know anything about guys? Apparently less than I know about the language and customs of Moldavia. I said I know the basics. He said, “I beg to differ.” (He actually said that. I beg to differ. Just like his father!) Apparently, if I did know anything about guys, I’d know that Louie has a crush on me. It’s as plain as the trunk on an elephant. Plainer. Connor said, “Come on, Hildy. You really believe he comes over here to play chess with your father?” I said yes I really believe that. You know, because that’s what he’s been doing since he was six. I said what I didn’t understand was how Connor could know so much about Louie when he’s only met him twice and hasn’t said more than half a dozen words to him. He said, “It’s because I’m a guy, too. We know how we work.”
Maybe they really do have a manual.
I asked Ely if one of his very best friends was a girl he’d known for ever but he secretly had a crush on her would he spend, say, eleven years playing, say, chess with her father just so he could be around her? Ely said wouldn’t it make more sense to play chess with her?