One or Two Things I Learned About Love

by Dyan Sheldon

  I told Connor what the Countess said about dancing on the silver clouds of love. He thought it was great. So he declared tonight Dancing On The Silver Clouds Of Love Night. Otherwise known as sitting on the deck watching YouTube videos. We were having such a good time that I forgot to be careful and said he had to see the one Louie and I did of Hitchcock and Scorsese arguing over who was going to sit in Mr Masiado’s chair. Connor checked the time. He said he had a lot to do tomorrow and he better get going. I felt like a little kid whose balloon suddenly popped.

  Is it possible that love means always feeling like you’ve done something wrong?

  Our LAST NIGHT TOGETHER of the summer. We went to his secret beach. Connor brought a picnic. He even brought candles! We wrote I LOVE YOU in the sand surrounded by a big heart. He’d put some of our favourite songs on his iPod and we sat listening to them while we watched the sun go down. The candles kept blowing out. And it started to rain. But we still had a great time.

  Lovelovelove…

  Ely wanted to know what was wrong with me today. I said, “Nothing.” And there wasn’t. I was in a really good mood. If I was corn I’d be popping. He said that was what he meant. I wasn’t jumpy. Or moody. Or quiet. Or preoccupied. Or acting like we’d never been introduced. I said probably I was in such a good mood because after this week I’ll only see him on Saturdays. That would put anybody’s spirits over the satellite dish. He threw a pattypan squash at me but I caught it and threw it back. Next thing you know we were walking around the table doing cascades and fountains. A couple of cars stopped to watch. Later Broccoli Man came by. But he left the car door open and while he was trying to pick out exactly one pound of carrots Monsanto the killer cat got in. Broccoli Man didn’t notice till he got in himself and started to pull out. I don’t know which of them screamed louder. He drove into the fence. Ely and I couldn’t stop laughing.

  Went over to Louie’s tonight. He said to what do I owe this honour? If I’d thought about what to say before saying it, I would’ve said I’d decided to take pity on him. But I didn’t. I said I missed him. Which is true. When my head wasn’t hurting so much and I could actually think again, I’d been thinking about Louie a lot while I was recovering from the migraine. He said it’s not like he moved or anything. I said yeah, well, you know. He said yeah, he did know. He said he missed me, too.

  It’s been all systems go since I got to Nomi’s. I had to come over at the crack of dawn for the big briefing because, since they’re not back till Monday night, Mr Slevka wanted to make really sure we knew what to do if there was a tornado or a wolf attack or something like that. He made a list of things we MUST DO before we leave the house or go to bed, and we’re supposed to check everything off on it each time. The good news is that he had an expert come and look at the alarm so at least we don’t have to worry about Mr Janofski making any sudden marine landings in the living room. Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Mrs S taped a sheet of emergency numbers on the door of the refrigerator. She said it’s the one place we’re guaranteed to see it. She has every number on it except the Pentagon’s. I swear. She even has my parents’ number on it. I said I’m not ET, I can manage to call home, Mrs Slevka. She said that’s what you say now. We slouched around most of the morning but then we went into town for lunch. It took us an hour and a half to leave the house because of Mr Slevka’s checklist. Nomi figures it’s easier to get out of a high-security prison. We were going to the diner but Cristina and Max were in the Bear Café so we went in there. Max had us falling off our chairs with his stories of camp life. I never knew how funny poison ivy can be! After lunch me and Nomi wandered around town. Ran into some kids from school who were wandering around too. Hung out with them for a while comparing rumours. (Did Ms Veber really marry a forest ranger and leave Redbank? Did Mr Donough become a monk? Are they going to make us wear uniforms?) Then we stopped by Maggie’s. Sara was there. She’d had a fight with Kruger so she was hiding out at the Pryces’. The four of us ended up playing a hysterical game of Pictionary. Mrs Pryce felt sorry for me and Nomi having to microwave our own meal so she asked us to stay for supper. There was no sign of Mr Pryce or the barbecue so we figured it was safe. It was late by the time we got back to the Casa Slevka. It wasn’t until I was brushing my teeth that I realized I don’t have my phone! It seems impossible but it’s true. I was in such a hurry this morning that I left it charging in my room. I haven’t thought of it all day. Or of Connor! How amazing is that?

  It was really hot and muggy so we went to the mall with Cristina and Sara. Got things for school. Then Nomi and I picked up some stuff for tomorrow and went over to Casa D’Angelo for supper. My mom had made lasagne. You don’t want to miss my mom’s lasagne even if you’re living the dream with Nomi. And I wanted to pick up my phone. Of course. I’d promised Connor I’d text him even if he couldn’t get them till he was on his way back. Wound up playing cards for hours with the whole family. Including Gus and Abe. But my phone’s disappeared! How is that possible? I know exactly where I left it. It was right there, attached to the charger. Zelda swears she didn’t touch it. I said so who did? One of your dinosaurs? She wanted to know why she gets blamed for everything. Nobody else touched it either. (Of course.) Mom thinks I must’ve taken it off the charger and put it somewhere when I was rushing around so much. I said I don’t remember that. She said well that’s the point. I said well I guess it’s either that or the ghost. My dad drove us back to Nomi’s.

  3 A.M.

  Major thunderstorm, but that’s not what woke us. What woke us was the alarm. Nomi thinks somebody was trying to get in. You know, because Mr Slevka had the expert come and she said it’s working the way it’s supposed to. I said experts are wrong all the time. They’re so wrong it’s amazing anybody ever listens to them. And even if the expert was right, I figure the storm could’ve set it off. I mean it’s all electricity, isn’t it? But Nomi said she heard things. I said of course you hear things. It’s an old house and everything’s rattling because of the wind and the rain. You can’t walk across the bathroom without hearing the floorboards creak ten minutes later. She said she didn’t mean the rattling or the creaking. She meant an intruder. She wouldn’t stop till we had checked every window and door twice. Then she wanted to look in every closet and cupboard. I said it’s not like somebody’s going to hide behind the canned vegetables, Nomi. She said why not? Maybe it’s a trained robber monkey. Did I think of that? The weird thing is that by the time we’d checked out anything with hinges that opens (including the piano) I was as wound up as Nomi. A branch or something bounced off the window and I nearly went into cardiac arrest. I said it’s just like jealousy, isn’t it? Nomi wanted to know what was just like jealousy. I said thinking there’s an intruder. The more you think about it the more you convince yourself. It keeps building like a snowball till if you see a coin on the floor you think the burglar dropped it. Nomi asked how I knew that was just like being jealous. I said it’s called using your imagination. They are both about being paranoid. It’s not that big a leap. Nomi said, “Are we talking about Connor Bowden here?” I said that it’s not really jealousy with Connor. She said making you take pictures of yourself in closets? Checking up that you’re really where you said you’d be? That’s not jealousy? I said no. It may look like that, but it isn’t. She said what is it? I said love. But sometimes he gets a little carried away. Nomi said, “You’re wrong, Hildy. It isn’t love, it’s jealousy.”

  Everybody else has finally crashed but I can’t sleep. It’s been the most incredible night. So incredible that I don’t even know where to start. So I guess I’ll start with Maggie, Cristina and Sara coming over. That was just before it began storming again. We decided to sleep in the family room in the basement because it was way hot and humid again today and it’s cooler down there. Plus there’s enough room for all the sleeping bags and for us to spread out. And there’s a bathroom and a mini fridge. So we don’t have to keep going upstairs or downstairs for stuff. We listened to music and played
ping-pong. Then we played cards. Then we ordered pizza. After that we were ready to hunker down and watch a couple of movies. Maggie was doing Nomi’s nails. Cristina was crimping Sara’s hair. Typical slumber party. We were having so much fun that none of us could understand why it was the first time we’d done it all summer. (And now it was the last time we’d do it all summer.) Anyway, we were on our first intermission when Nomi thought she heard something. I said oh no, not again. She told me to shush. She turned down the music. We couldn’t hear anything but the storm really. At least Maggie, Cristina, Sara and I couldn’t hear anything. Cristina said anyway, old houses creak more than rusty swings. Nomi said it didn’t sound like her old house creaking, it sounded like someone trying to get in. Sara said so let them try. You have the alarm. Nomi and I looked at each other. It was one of those uh-oh looks. We hadn’t put the alarm on yet. The pizza man came and we ate. And then we were talking and recovering from pizza bloat. And then we started the DVD. So we hadn’t done the whole routine with the checklist and everything. You know, because it takes hours and we wanted to hang out, not lock up Fort Knox. We were going to do that later. I said maybe we should put it on now. Then it’ll be done. Nomi said what if there’s already somebody up there? I didn’t think there was. I said it’s not like we left the front door wide open. We locked it. We just didn’t put the alarm on. And everything else was locked. Nomi said was it? After we opened the living-room windows to get a breeze, did we lock them again? I couldn’t remember. But probably we did. It’s the kind of thing you do automatically. Turn off the stove. Turn off the iron. Lock the windows. I said you’re winding yourself up again. There isn’t anybody up there. I was sure of it. And then we heard what could definitely be somebody shutting the window they’d opened that we didn’t lock. Nomi turned the music off completely. Sara whispered that they were going up the stairs. Cris whispered that she didn’t hear anything. Maggie poked her to be quiet. That time, I did hear something that could’ve been someone – or someones – crossing the living room. The only light we’d left on was in the kitchen so they were going really slowly. And then we all heard someone trip over that extra step when you reach the hall. We didn’t know what to do. Go up after them? Flee? Maggie said we should lock the basement door and call the police. But the basement door doesn’t lock since the time Mrs Slevka got trapped when she was doing the laundry. So Nomi called the police. We couldn’t hear their side of the conversation but Nomi kept saying, “Well, no… Well, no, we—” and sighing and rolling her eyes, so we figured they weren’t going to send 16 squad cars with their sirens shrieking any time soon. I said we should go up and set off the alarm because that would freak them out and bring Mr Janofski running. Everybody thought that was a great idea. Sara thought we should have weapons. Some blunt, heavy objects. But Nomi said we wanted to surprise and disable whoever it was, not actually kill them. She dashed into the utility room and came back with a clutch of spray cans. Starch. Air freshener. Cleaners. Armed, we tiptoed up the stairs. Only when we got to the door that leads into the kitchen we could hear footsteps coming back downstairs. I guess because I’ve been lying so much that I’m used to thinking quickly when adrenalin is galloping through my blood system, I felt strangely calm. I told Nomi to go out the back and get Mr Janofski and his bare hands. The rest of us crept back to the basement. What were the chances they’d come down there? If they were smart, they were going to go through the living room and the study and grab cameras and laptops and stuff like that. And then they’d run. But just in case for some bizarre reason they figured the Slevkas kept their valuables in the cellar, we lined up on either side of the stairs, cans at the ready. It seemed like hours passed while we waited to be rescued by either the marine or the police. And then the door to the basement opened. We all stopped breathing. A lone figure stood on the top step for a minute or two. We couldn’t actually see him, but we could feel him. We had a light on so I guess he was listening for voices. I signalled to Sara and Maggie that we’d jump him on the count of three. He started down. I held up one finger. He reached the middle. Two. He stepped into the basement. Three! We jumped out spraying and screaming. Nomi and Mr Janofski must’ve been pretty close behind him because when he tried to run back up the stairs, he ran straight into Mr Janofski in his pyjamas and robe. Mr Janofski said, “Well, what do we have here?” And all of us answered at once, “It’s Connor!” As far as I can remember, we all sounded surprised.

  I have to crash now. More tomorrow. When maybe it’ll all make more sense.

  It doesn’t. Make more sense. Nomi, Maggie, Cristina, Sara and I all agree on that. When we woke up we all looked at each other and Sara said, “We didn’t have some communal nightmare, did we? It did really happen.” Nomi said as bright, creative and imaginative as we all are, we couldn’t have made up last night. And who could?

  So back to what happened. The police arrived while I was still explaining to Mr Janofski that what we had there was my boyfriend, not an unknown intruder. Mr Janofski wasn’t too impressed. He didn’t let go of Connor. He said, “This is your boyfriend? Your boyfriend broke into your friend’s house?” He said it more than once. Then the police showed up. They were a lot less interested than Mr Janofski. They thought it was just teenagers fooling around and they gave us all a caution about wasting their time and left. But there was no way Mr Janofski was going to keep his mouth shut and we knew it. We knew it because he said, “I’ll have to tell your parents, Nomi. You know that, don’t you?” Nomi said, “Oh don’t worry, Mr Janofski. I’ll tell them myself.” She was glaring at Connor. I wondered if she’d always disliked him so much. After Mr Janofski marched back across the lawn, Nomi, Maggie, Cristina and Sara all went inside while Connor explained to me less vaguely than he had in front of the others what he was doing climbing in through the Slevkas’ window when he was supposed to be camping by a river. What happened was that the Bowden men came back early from their fishing trip because Connor’s granddad’s gout started acting up. Connor called me on the landline while he and his dad were driving back but of course I wasn’t there. Zelda answered. I figure he was already a little charged up because he expected to find all these messages from me when he could get a signal again and there wasn’t one. Zelda told him I was at a party at Nomi’s. If she said “pyjama party” he didn’t hear that part. But he definitely heard the “Nomi” and the “party” parts. He knew it! He’d been right all along. Women can’t be trusted. I told him I’d be sitting at home missing him, but the minute he turned his back I was partying with my friends. So he came right over. He wanted to catch me in the act. Not the act where I was dancing and eating pretzels without him. The act where I was with another guy. It didn’t discourage him for even a blink when he got to the Slevkas’ and there weren’t any signs of a party. He figured we were all making out in the dark. That’s why he broke in like that. I asked him if he realized how much he’d scared us? For all we knew he was armed and dangerous. We were terrified. He said he didn’t mean to scare us. How could he? He didn’t think we were there all by ourselves watching a movie. He thought we were having a party. With lots of boys. I said and did he realize how much he’d embarrassed me? Having your boyfriend break into your best friend’s house makes him look crazy and you look like a fool. He said he didn’t mean to embarrass me either. It was just that he was really worried. I said that if a person was so worried, he would knock on the door. He said not necessarily. I said and anyway he did mean to embarrass me. He thought he was going to make a big scene and humiliate me in front of EVERYBODY. Connor said, “Well, I was mad.” I said he wasn’t the only one. And I marched back into the house and slammed the door. Set off the alarm and it wasn’t even on.

  Nomi said I should never have given Connor her address. I said I didn’t. She said, “Oh. You think Zelda did?” I said Zelda’s lucky to know her own address never mind somebody else’s.

  My phone was exactly where I’d left it when I got home this morning. Nobody knows anything about where it
was or how it managed to put itself back in my room and plug itself in. I believe that Zelda and my dad had nothing to do with it. Zelda would’ve destroyed it somehow if she’d taken it. And my dad wouldn’t interfere like that unless I was a car. That leaves my mom and Gus. They’re like Batman and Robin when it comes to interfering (only without the masks and the Batmobile). Which, considering how Connor acted, may not be such a bad thing.

  So it was the big inaugural barbecue today. Everybody came. Gran said she heard what happened with Connor. I pretended to be shocked and astounded by this. She said she was glad to see I was taking it with my usual good humour. She said it sounded like we girls had been very brave and level-headed. That was just what Mr Janofski said. He said we should all consider joining the marines. Gran said you know it’s not healthy for either of you, when someone’s so possessive and controlling. I had to ask. I said, “Is that why you lied for me when I told him I was with you and I wasn’t?” Gran said yes. She said love is about trust, not fear. (My mom and Gus aren’t the only caped crusaders in the family.) Then she wanted to know what I’m going to do. I said you mean am I going to join the marines? She said no, Hildegard. About Connor. I said I didn’t know. Which is true. One minute I never want to speak to him again, and the next I’m remembering some sweet thing he did or funny thing he said and feeling bad. Should I follow my heart or my head? Sometimes I think heart, because the heart’s about feelings. Other times I think head, because it’s my feelings that got me into this mess. Gran said maybe I could follow both of them.