Meg Cabot - Every Boy’s Got One

And what about the children? Mark and Holly’s, I mean, if, God forbid, they should have them? How are they going to raise the children? I don’t want my grandchildren having no sense of identity because they’ve been raised in TWO religions. That’s worse than being raised with none!

Anyway, I’m just hoping that since you’re with Mark right now, you could try to talk some sense into him. He’s always respected you, and I just know if you told him not to rush into anything— to give Susie Schramm a call when he gets home—he’d listen. She has completely outgrown that under bite, you know. It’s a miracle what orthodontia can do.

Thank you, Cal. And please give my love to your parents. Except for an annual Christmas newsletter from your mom, I haven’t heard much from them since they split up. But Joan’s hacienda in Tucson looks lovely—at least, judging from her newsletter. And I hope Hank is enjoying himself in Mexico City, and that that little misunderstanding at the track back in Dayton got cleared up.

Affectionately,

Ruth Levine

PDA of Cal Langdon

Well… this is definitely going to be an interesting trip.

The bride-to-be’s uncle appears to employ a German half-wit as a housekeeper, who went on ad nauseum about how things are so different now in Le Marche than they were right after the war (no need to ask which one… around here, there was only one war) and that Americans are welcome now with open arms, in spite of what they did to Ancona. No mention, of course, about her own country of origin’s having started that war.

The groom’s mother has another girl in mind for her daughter-in-law.

And the maid of honor appears to hate my guts.

This should be a lot of fun.

Sarcasm aside, Le Marche is an extraordinarily beautiful area of the world, filled with Renaissance towns still virtually untouched by American influence… no McDonalds, no twenty-four-hour convenience marts, no superstores. No wonder so many Italians flock here every summer. The waterfront resorts are reportedly packed from July though August. And there are even supposed to be some beaches down by Portoforno and Osimo that rival the Cote d’Azur for natural beauty.

Still, stunning vistas and Renaissance churches aside, Le Marche is not exactly where I’d choose to get married. If I were to make the mistake of getting married again. Which, of course, I never will.

And I feel a sense of responsibility toward Mark to keep him from making the same mistake as well. Not because, despite what Jane Harris might think, that I believe Holly is another Valerie. And not even because his mother asked me to. But because the guy has never lived! He’s been in school for what, twenty years? And then he went straight from that to practicing full time…. the guy’s done NOTHING. Never backpacked in Nepal. Never trekked the Amazon. Never swallowed the worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle in Belize. Adventure, to Mark, is a Star Trekconvention.

And he thinks he’s ready to get married? He’s ready for a therapist’s couch, is what he’s ready for.

Holly’s a great girl—I have no doubts about that. But marriage? No. Not now. The guy needs to have a life first. Then, if he and Holly were meant to be, they can attach the old ball and chain.

Obviously, I’m going to have to be subtle about this. Ms. Harris will undoubtedly be watching for any signs of mutiny. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. She looks kind of cute with her chin thrust out in righteous indignation.

I can’t believe I just wrote that. First fetching. Now cute. I think I need out of this car. And a drink.

She does have the worst problems with her footwear of any woman I have ever met. First the stiletto between the cobblestones last night, and today, the heel twisting in the gravel. I don’t know how she manages to remain upright.

And she has this unnerving habit of staring at my crotch. Yes, she’s short, but certainly not so much that this is where her eye level might naturally rest.

Ah, we’ve reached the exit where Frau Schumacher is going to meet us. She says she drives a silver Mercedes. Her grasp of English seems to have been derived from watching too many subtitled episodes of Murder She Wrote.

This should be an exceedingly entertaining week.

Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine

Jane Harris

Oh my God, we’re HERE. Villa Beccacia!

And it’s GORGEOUS.

I will admit, at first I had my doubts. That Frau Schumacher— I think she might actually be as old as some of those castles we zoomed by. And, um, she’s just SLIGHTLY in love with Large Appendage. It’s sickening! Just because he speaks German! We got out of the car to meet her on the shoulder of the exit, and she was all, “Vich vun is Cal?” and when he raised his hand, you could practically see her melt onto the asphalt.

And she’s got to be a hundred if she’s a day! Who knew Large Appendage’s magic works on centenarians?

The next thing I knew, the two of them were totally chattering away in German, leaving the rest of us out of the conversation.

Fortunately she had her great-grandson with her, Peter, who’s fourteen and speaks English… well, pretty well anyway. Don’t ask me why Peter is living with great-granny in Italy and not attending school, either here or his native Germany. Possibly she’s home-schooling him? He does look a bit like he’d get the you know what knocked out of him in an American high school. I mean, he’s a little on the chubby side and very soft-spoken, with an X-Men T-shirt under his jean jacket. In any case, I didn’t think it would be polite to ask. About why he wasn’t in school, I mean.

Anyway, Peter asked us non-German speakers how the drive was, and if we were hungry, and said he and “Grandmuzzer” had stocked the fridge at the villa, so we should be all right until the “shops” opened again tomorrow, they’re all being closed today on account of it’s Sunday.

Mark asked him about liquor—you can tell sitting shotgun while Holly drove had worn away his last good nerve—and Peter said, looking confused, “Vell, I zink zere are many bottles in the house now.”

Mark looked visibly relieved.

Then Frau Schumacher said for us all to get back in the car and follow her. So we did. And we were driving along, me not being able to help notice that there was a big wall of clouds climbing over the nearby, castle-crested hill, and realizing I probably wasn’t going to be able to squeeze in an evening swim, when all of a sudden Holly went, “Look! The Adriatic!”

And there it was, this beautiful slice of sapphire blue, right there! There was no one on the beach, because being the middle of September, it’s off season, of course… even though it’s still in the 80s, temperature-wise (or the twenties, if you’re going Celsius, like the Italians).

But somebody had still put out all of these white-and-yellow-striped lounge chairs, just in case.

And we drove through this adorable little seaside town, Porto Recanati, filled with the sweetest shops— a gelateria, and an Italian Benetton—and something called the Crazy Bar and Sexy Tattoo Shop, which I’m not sure really qualifies as sweet—and then hung a left onto a road I’m not even sure, technically, really IS a road. I mean, it’s DIRT, and all of this dust was flying as we went down it, so that we had to close the windows.

Still, it was tree-lined, and through the spaces between the trees, we caught glimpses of the Centro Ippico—a horseriding center down the road from Villa Beccacia… although not far ENOUGH down the road, if you ask me, since even as I write this I can hear neighing.

And there’s a slightly horsy odor in the air when the wind shifts.

But whatever. We followed Frau Schumacher to this electric wooden gate, and waited while she hit a button and it slid slowly open….

And then we saw it. Villa Beccacia, Holly’s uncle’s house, which has been around for a really long time… hundreds of years, since it was built in the 1600s!

Of course, it’s been remodeled since then.

But not so you’d notice from the outside. As we drove down the long driveway, past fruit trees around which bees were humming and butterflies were flitting, past a deep green pond, its surface covered with lily pads, past rolling, grassy hills, the stone house, with vines creeping up all over it, came into view.

And it was just the way I’d pictured it!

Well, okay, there weren’t any turrets. But really, it’s LIKE a castle. I mean, it’s really old, and inside, there are these darkly beamed and vaulted ceilings. And there are tapestries hanging on the walls, and in the old-fashioned kitchen, there’s a brick oven.

You can’t USE it… they put in a modern stove to cook on. But the brick oven is still THERE.

The casement windows are sunk into these deep walls with sills you can sit on, and open out like shutters. There are no screens, because if there were, you wouldn’t be able to open the windows.

And out back, the pool is just steps away from the covered stone patio—the terrazza , according to Peter—with the ancient built-in grill/fireplace. This is apparently where Zio Matteo spends most of his time when he’s home, since there was wax all over the wrought-iron table from the many candles that had dripped onto it while he was enjoying what Frau Schumacher intimated was one of his many enormous meals (from the photos I’ve seen scattered around the house, Zio Matteo definitely enjoys his food). There was lots of firewood in the pile for the future, and a few sad-looking fly-strips hanging from the rafters.

The pool is gorgeous, 50 by 20 feet at least, with blue-and-white-striped lounge chairs all around, and palm trees at each end, the fronds swaying gently in the breeze (which is picking up, thanks to the approaching rain clouds). I am going to be so glued to the side of that pool as soon as the weather clears up.

Oh, and the whole wedding thing is taken care of.

Holly broke the news to Frau Schumacher as we were following the old lady around the house, listening to her rattle on in broken English about how there were plenty of clean towels but she’d just finished washing them and they were still drying on the line over at her cottage farther down the driveway.

“You vill need lots of tovels,” Frau Schumacher was saying, “for the svimming and the beach.”

“Well,” Holly said, glancing sweetly at Mark. “We aren’t really here for the water sports, Frau Schumacher. Mark and I plan on getting married this week, over in Castelfidardo.”

Frau Schumacher reacted the way a NORMAL—read, not Cal Langdon—person would react upon finding out a young and attractive couple like Mark and Holly were getting married: She clapped her hands for glee and wanted to know all the details, like what Holly would be wearing and did her uncle know and when were her parents coming.

To which Holly replied, her face getting red, “Well, I didn’t tell Zio Matteo or my parents. We’re eloping, actually—”

Which threw Frau Schumacher into a tizzy of excitement— once Cal translated, since neither Peter nor she was familiar with the wordelope . She exclaimed, in her broken English, that she knew the mayor of Castelfidardo very well, and that if any problems developed, she was to be consulted immediately. Where was the wedding breakfast going to be? What? We hadn’t planned for a wedding breakfast? Well, there had to be a wedding breakfast. She would supply it—

Then Frau Schumacher’s gaze fell on Cal (it never actually strays away from him long, I’ve noticed) and she glanced from him to me quickly and asked, no longer smiling, “And you two? You are having vedding, too?”

Both Cal and I hastened to assure the housekeeper that we were not—Cal a little more hastily than I think was actually polite, to tell you the truth. I mean, he may not know it, but he’d be LUCKY to be married to a girl like me. At least I can support myself without Daddy’s—or some investment banker’s— money, unlike SOME women he might know.

And I am at a completely normal body weight, and don’t have to stick my finger down my throat to maintain it.

Plus, I have two television sets. How many does Cal have? Oh, that’d be none. I asked. Yeah, Cal doesn’t “believe” in TV.

Right. You know what I don’t believe in? People who don’t believe in TV.