Every Boy's Got One (45 page)

PDA of Cal Langdon

It seems fairly obvious to me that I could have handled that better.

Really, Grazi’s timing could not have been more unfortunate. I think I had almost gotten herto forgive me for my earlier, unfortunate gaffes.

Although I still insist my opinions, especially on marriage, were perfectly valid. You can’t tell me there isn’t an educated person alive who might, looking at the world as it is today, wonder if bringing a new life into it might not be the wisest course of action. Given the state of the global-economic—not to mention environmental—situation as it exists at this moment, what kind of person could possibly consider having children, when all that child stands to inherit is a planet devoid of adequate energy sources and (as a consequence of this rape of our fossil fuels) an ozone layer; bankrupt Social Security and Medicaid; and a community terrorized by fundamentalists who believe it is their inherent right to exert their values and beliefs on others, through physical force, if necessary?

Only a fool.

And yet, for the first time in my life, I can see how being a fool can have its advantages. Especially if what you’re being a fool for is love.

God. I can’t believe I just wrote that.

But, incredibly, it’s true. I can see now why Mark and Holly felt they hadto marry, in spite of their parents’ opposition, in spite of what they know about this world and the dangers it holds. I can see now why it was so important to them to legalize their union—why having an easily accessible escape route from a romantic relationship isn’t always necessarily the best thing, if you want the relationship to last.

I see all these things now.

Too bad I can’t convince her of that.

Not that I thought it would be easy. But I honestly never anticipated that I might be doing it from the bottom of a pool.

Here is where the Old Cal might start bleating about how She’s got some nerve, expecting me to have acted like a damned eunuch in the past, when I didn’t even know her. This is when the Old Cal might think to himself, Why am I even bothering to put myself through this? I’ve got a perfectly beautiful, elegant, sophisticated Italian woman right here who’d be more than happy to make love with me all night long. Why am I worrying about what some American cartoonist is thinking?

Ah, there’s the rub. Because I don’t want the beautiful, elegant, sophisticated Italian woman. I want the cartoonist with the cat tattoo who can’t seem to stop tripping over her own shoes.

God help me.

She, however, has made it perfectly clear she doesn’t want me. At least, not anymore. I suppose Grazi strolling in like that, looking as if she owned the place in that hat and those stilettos, was just one strike too many against me.

Grazi was perfectly understanding about it. She apologized for not having checked her email, and said by the time she got my phone messages, she was already on her way. I believe I made quite an ass of myself, trying to explain what was going on, as I drove her back to the train station (after I’d changed into dry clothes, of course).

“I see,” was what Grazi had to say about it. “You are in love. With a woman who draws a cartoon. About a cat.”

Hearing her put it that way, so baldly—You are in love—I actually felt physically ill for a moment.

And yet—here’s the strangest thing of all—I felt ill in a good way.

“That’s not all,” I felt compelled to confess. “She thinks I’m a pompous ass, incapable of feeling anything except my own sense of superiority.”

Grazi seemed to find this amusing.

“You
can
be pompous,” she said. Which I can’t say I found particularly reassuring. “You seem to think you know everything there is to know.”

“She’s categorically uninterested in geopolitical dynamics,” I went on, “or world affairs of any kind.”

“Yes,” Grazi said. “But these things are not important to most people.”

“This morning,” I added, feeling desperate for someone, anyone to try to talk me out of what I knew perfectly well was already a foregone conclusion, “I saw her put ketchup on her eggs. And she likes Nutella. And that television show, ER.”

To which Grazi replied, with a calmness I’m sure she was far from feeling, “Yes, but this is a very popular show.”

“It’s not something I planned on happening,” I explained to her.

“Who plans on falling in love?” Grazi asked, with a shrug. “It simply happens. We cannot stop it, however much we might try.”

Then, exhaling a plume of blue smoke from her cigarette, she added, “Though I imagine in your case, trying not to just made you fall harder. That is the way, with men like you. When it happens, nothing can stop it. Not even ketchup on the eggs.”

“She hates me,” I admitted miserably.

“No, she does not,” Grazi was kind enough to say. “If she hated you, she would not have pushed you in the water when she saw me.”

I hope—but do not actually believe—that Grazi is right.

But even if she is, what can I do about it? By the time I got back to the house after dropping Grazi off at the train station, so she could go back to Rome, the party was over, and the house was shut up tight. She was nowhere to be found. I knew she hadn’t left… her suitcase was still there. Thinking she’d gone into town with the others to terrorize the bridal couple at their hotel, I drove in, but saw only Peter and his little friends on the beach, ripping apart Holly’s garlic flower bouquet in some sort of strange pubescent Lord-of-the-Flies-like ceremony, and throwing the petals into the sea.

Now I’ve had too much coffee at the café, and read every English-language paper in town. The sun is starting to set, and I know I should go back to the villa to see if she’s there.

But part of me is afraid to leave this chair. Because what happens if I go back there, and she gives me the cold shoulder?

Grazi’s reply, when I asked her this very question as she was boarding her train, was hardly reassuring.

“She won’t,” she said, with a smile, “if you make the grand gesture.”

“What grand gesture?” I asked. “I already threw a party that put me five grand in the hole, and all that got me was a view of the bottom of the pool.”

“What does she want?” Grazi asked, pointedly. “Besides a wedding for her friend, which you already gave her? That is what you must do, you know. Give her what she wants—what she’s never had—and she’ll be yours.”

I had to think about that one. What Jane Harris wants. I thought about it for a long time after Grazi’s train pulled away from the station.

It turned out not to be that hard. I mean, it’s not like it wasn’t written on practically every page of her diary.

Still, how to show her I really meant it:. that was the hard part.

Of course, if it turns out I’m wrong…

Well, here goes nothing.