Meg Cabot - Every Boy’s Got One

As usual. Just further proof that The Dude, as I’ve always suspected, really is God.

Now the secretario ’s left his own office. Frau Schumacher looks very pleased with herself. I asked Peter what’s going on, and he said, “The secretario is going to see if ze mayor vill change his schedule to let your friends get married on Vednesday. There is maybe an opening in ze calendar on zis day.”

When I commented that this seemed like a positive development, Peter nodded and said, “Yes. Zey are all very frightened of my grandmuzzer. She will go to the mayor’s muzzer, and zat zey do not want.”

Yes! Joy!

You would think Holly would be happier to hear that. But she’s just sitting next to me, holding her stomach and looking kind of queasy.

Well, I guess I can’t really blame her. She’s been looking forward to getting married for so long, and all of these delays have to be—

The secretario is back. Oh my gosh! We’re being summoned to the mayor’s office!

___________________________________________

To: Jane Harris <jane@wondercat.com>

Fr: Claire Harris <charris2004@freemail.com>

Re: You

Oh, sweetie, that’s horrible news about poor Holly! Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but Daddy dropped a picture frame on his big toe so we were just at Promptcare getting it X-rayed. Not broken, thank God, but a bad bruise. I sent him to bed with a bowl of Breyers.

I do hope you’re able to work something out for Holly. It would be such a shame for she and Mark— well, all of you, really—to have gone all that way and then not be able to have your little elopement. I feel just terrible.

But, even if they can’t get married, you can still have a nice vacation, can’t you? What is Holly’s uncle’s house like? Is it pretty? Do the windows lock? Because you know I just saw on the news that in a lot of those oceanside communities, people leave the windows open at night to let in the sea breezes, and it’s like an invitation to thieves and rapists! They just slip in on through the windows and take whatever they want! I hope you’re making sure all the windows are locked at night.

And I hope you’re not being too mean to that handsome Cal Langdon. You’re a very vibrant and pretty girl, Janie, and you know men can’t help falling in love with you. Remember how many of them asked you to the senior prom? Well, it’s true a lot of them were freshman boys who couldn’t have taken you anyway….

But the way they mooned around the house, asking Daddy if they could mow the lawn, when we knew perfectly well they just wanted a glimpse of you. Keep in mind that some of those boys you wouldn’t give the time of day to went on to have very good jobs at Pfizer.

And Helen Shipley told me her son Curt makes six figures in the cruise ship industry!

Why you keep insisting Curt is one of those bisexuals, I can’t imagine. Helen says it simply isn’t true. Curt’s not married yet because he just hasn’t met the right girl, according to Helen. Probably YOU were the right girl, and he’s just waiting for you to get in touch.

Also, according to Charlie Rose, Mr. Langdon got a VERY nice advance for that little book he wrote. That’s not something you ought to turn up your nose at, you know. Wondercat is darling, but it won’t always be as popular as it is now. You need to think about your future, you know, Janie.

Love,

Mom

PS Daddy says to tell you it looks as if that cartoon about the flying serving utensils has been canceled. That might open up a slot for the Wondercat animated series, don’t you think?

___________________________________________

To: Listserv <Wundercat@wundercatlives.com>

Fr: Peter Schumacher <webmaster@wundercatlives.com>

Re: JANE HARRIS

SUCCESS!!! My grandmother has arranged it all! The friends of JANE HARRIS will be married Wednesday morning at nine o’clock, before the mayor had to go and coach the American football game at the primary school, where he is also the athletic director when he is not being mayor.

But they must get the stamp from the consulate of the US before they can be married. So tomorrow they will go to Rome to receive it.

All is done, and by my grandmother! Everyone was much excited! Except for the secretario and the mayor.

But best of all—

JANE HARRIS KISSED ME!!!! YES!!!! To say thank you for making it so that her friends can have their marriage!!!

Never will I wash this face again.

That is all for now. I am Peter Schumacher, #1 fan of Wundercat, saying

TSCHUSS!

Wundercat Lives—4eva!

Peter

___________________________________________

GE. SP. AL. S.N.C

Viale Europa 44

Porto Recanati (MC)

GROCERY

EURO

PelliCola Co

0,50

6 Minibiscot

2,50

Olive Bella

2,50

Kinder Sorpr

1,80

Birra Peroni, 24

12,76

Insalata Rom

0,66

Tomato Ketch

2,23

Uva Italia P

1,95

The Twinings

1,90

Insalata Tro

0,41

Puro Succo

1,33

Naionese Cal

1,22

Latte Fr.A.Q.

1,37

Insalata Gen

0,38

Latte Fr. Int

1,30

Oro Duepic’c

2,34

637 Pom.Ross

1,90

Banco Taglio

1,01

Oro Piu’caca

1,53

Olive verdi

0,78

Bisc. Conad G

0,89

Pane Dolci I

0,55

Pomodori Pel

0,55

Doricream

0,65

Mais Pop Cor

0,60

Banco Taglio

27,21

Caffe Classi

2,09

Caffe Classi

2,09

Arance Taroc

2,55

TOTALE

77,55

Contanti

100,00

Resto

22,45

N.Pezzi 50

Oper: 10

Cassa 1 1

Regalo Bollini: 15

Codice: Bollini

Arrivederci e Grazie!

___________________________________________

___________________________________________

La Cantinetta

Enoteca

Ricrea di Morresi G. & C.

SNC Viale Europa 36

Porto Recanati

EURO

Vino 1 8,66

Vino 1 7,80

Vino 1 7,40

Vino 1 5,40

Vino 1 7,00

Vino 1 9,00

Vino 1 9,00

Vino 1 6,50

Vino 1 6,50

Vino 1 5,00

Vino 1 5,00

Vino 1 10,20

Vino 1 9,00

Vino 1 14,00

TOTALE 110,46

Grazie!

___________________________________________

Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine

Jane Harris

The mayor said yes!!!!

It seemed touch and go there to me for a while, but Frau Schumacher totally came through for us! I couldn’t tell what she was saying to the big man behind the desk—a very intimidating desk, too, with lots of important looking documents all over it, for a very intimidating man, wearing a big green shiny sash over his track suit—but Cal later translated that basically, she said, “Marry these two delightful young people or I will make you sorry.”

Cal says he doesn’t know HOW Frau Schumacher was going to make him sorry, but the mayor apparently believed her enough to make a time in his schedule for Holly and Mark.

And OK, it’s super-early in the morning for a wedding— 9A .M.—but it’s better than nothing! Frau Schumacher was right about wedding breakfasts, I guess. That’s what they do here, instead of receptions.

Now all we have to do is drive to Rome tomorrow, get the form Holly and Mark need, and drive back.

At last, we can relax a little. We went grocery shopping for food for the rest of the week (and Cal and Mark hit the liquor store, this cute little shop called La Cantinetta in Porto Recanati. Frankly, I think 14 bottles of wine, champagne, J & B, and something called limoncello might be a bit much, but it IS a wedding, after all, even if it’s just four of us attending) and then came home and hit the pool right away. At least, Holly and Mark and Peter and I did. Cal got a call from his editor or somebody, so he’s sitting in the terrazza, yakking into his cell, saying things like, “But I said you’d have it next month. No, I never said that.”

___________________________________________

Sounds like somebody’s a little late on a project. Ha ha.

I got the skinny on Peter while we were in the mayor’s office, too. When we walked in, I was surprised to see a girl about Peter’s age sitting on the mayor’s desk, going “Papa” in the unmistakable wheedle of a teenaged daughter. She was a pretty little thing named Annika—all big blue eyes and blonde ringlets and knobby knees—and when she saw Peter, she completely forgot about whatever favor she was begging her father for. Her eyes narrowed in that mean way only teenaged girls’ eyes can, and she went, “What are you doing here?”

And Peter was all, “I am here on official business with the mayor.”

And the girl started laughing and said, “What business can you have with my fazzer?”

And everything was suddenly SO clear to me, just from those—let me see—OK, eight little words. You know, that Peter adores Annika with a passion that cannot be denied, and that she wants him, too, but Peter isn’t considered cool enough to date in their social set, and so she has to act scornful towards him.

It was all so obvious and sad.

Then the mayor hung up the phone and went, “Annika. Shush.”

Then he and Frau Schumacher started going at it in Italian, so I used the opportunity to ask Peter who the girl was, sotto voce (Italian for “in a soft voice.” I am really getting this language down, if I do say so myself).

 And he was like, his voice dripping with (obviously feigned) scorn, “Zat’s Annika. She is the mayor’s daughter. She zinks she is queen of all of Castelfidardo even zo she is not.”

And I asked Peter if he and Annika went to school together, and he told me he goes to “Internet school” because the schools in Castelfidardo aren’t “adwanced” enough for him, and that he can’t go to school back in Germany because there’s no one there for him to live with, his “fazzer” currently being “in the jail.”

In the jail! Peter’s dad—Frau Schumacher’s grandson—is in the jail!

For what, I don’t know. But now I understand why it is that Peter is able to hang around us all day. Annika, presumably, was on her (three-hour) lunch break from school. Can you imagine all the trouble American teens could get up to if we gave them a three-hour lunch break? And all of the malls were CLOSED during it? My God, civilization as we know it would break down completely.

Anyway, after the mayor and Frau S. negotiated their little compromise, there was a lot of cheering and relieved sighs (and, from Cal Langdon, a frown), so I took the opportunity to lean down and give Peter a peck on the cheek—to thank him, you know, since if he hadn’t gone and got his great-grandmother, none of this would have happened.

And, while Peter turned bright red, I had the pleasure of seeing Annika, who’d witnessed the kiss, scowl prettily.

Score one for Peter.

Poor Annika. One of these days she’s going to wake up and realize Peter was the one for her. Only by the time that happens, Peter will have his own software company and be making millions and be dating a starlet from some Fox sitcom… or whatever the Italian equivalent of Fox might be.

Cal Langdon just barked, “You’ll get it when you get it, Art,” into his phone.

God. He is so Type A. He really needs to learn to chill, like me, or he’s going to have a coronary before he’s forty.

And how dare he suggest that there’s something wrong with MY parents for staying together so long? I asked him while we were in the hallway outside the mayor’s office, out of earshot of Holly, how long HIS parents stayed together, and he said, “They were married twenty years, and are much happier people now that they’ve gone their separate ways.”