Meg Cabot - Every Boy’s Got One

I can’t believe he’d take advantage of that sweet old lady’s crush on him in such an obvious manner, even if he DID give her ten euros for her trouble, according to Mark.

Still.

At least the food is good. REALLY good. Even when it’s prepared by someone who won’t take their eyes off Babe. Although Cal and I both eschewed the raw oysters, Cal because he doesn’t like them, and me because I may be a travel neophyte, but I am not eating raw fish in a foreign country. Holly and Mark were both like, “Oh, well, more for us,” and slurped down like twenty each.

Whatever. It’s their funeral.

After this, since it’s stopped raining, we’re going to get gelati from the Gelateria and take a moonlit walk along the beach. Romantic! Well, for Holly and Mark.

Uh-oh, back to the Who’s Going To Rome Tomorrow argument….

Who buys their shirts in BANGLADESH??? What is wrong with the Gap, for God’s sake?

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To: Jane Harris <jane@wondercat.com>

Fr: Claire Harris <charris2004@freemail.com>

Re: Holly

Hi, honey! Don’t worry, everything’s fine. Well, I mean, your dad burst a blood vessel in his eye just now trying to move the stereo, but he says it doesn’t even hurt.

Anyway, I hope I didn’t mess anything up, but I saw Marie Caputo in the grocery store just now, and she was down in the mouth as usual about Holly (and telling me how lucky I was that you only date boys like Dave—whatever happened to him, anyway? He was so sweet) and I might have mentioned something about how she shouldn’t think of Holly’s marrying Mark as losing a daughter, but as gaining a son.

Then I remembered she’s not supposed to know anything about Holly marrying Mark this week.

I hope I didn’t let the cat out of the bag, or anything!

And as for that Cal, well, I agree, Saudi Arabia is a very boring subject for a book.

But still, he looked quite nice in that turtleneck he was wearing on Charlie Rose . I think it might have been cashmere. I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt to give the boy a chance.

And what do you mean, I shouldn’t worry about him falling in love with you? I don’t want to hear that kind of negative talk from you, young lady. You know you’re irresistible. At least when you don’t have PMS and you wear your hair out of your eyes.

Love,

Mom

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To: Claire Harris <charris2004@freemail.com>

Fr: Jane Harris <jane@wondercat.com>

Re: Holly

MOM! THIS IS REALLY REALLY BAD!!!! I TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY ANYTHING!!!

DO NOT SAY ANYTHING ELSE TO ANYONE UNTIL I TELL YOU IT’S OK!

AND DON’T GO TO THE KROGER SAV-ON OR ANYWHERE ELSE WHERE YOU MIGHT MEET HOLLY’S MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

J

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To: Darrin Caputo <darrin.caputo@caputographics.com>

Fr: Jane Harris <jane@wondercat.com>

Re: Your mother

Oh my God, Darrin, does your mother know? About Holly and Mark, I mean? Because I think my mother might have spilled something. YOU know, right? I mean about them—

Oh my God, what if you’re not supposed to know either? Holly will KILL me if she finds out I told. She really wanted to surprise you, on account of all those times you kidded her that she would settle on one guy.

But whatever, this is an emergency. Holly’s been acting all weird since this afternoon, kind of down, and I think it might be because she heard from your mother. Darrin, Holly and Mark are eloping this week! But everything is going wrong! The marriage license people here in Le Marche aren’t cooperating and your uncle’s oven doesn’t work and there’s this friend of Mark’s who keeps saying the meanest things and—

Well, never mind all that. Anyway, you have GOT to keep your mom from figuring out what’s going on, because I don’t think Holly can take much more. Can you do something to throw her off the scent? Pretend you and Bobby are adopting or something?

Oh, I know! Tell her you’re going to have a sex change operation!!! YES!!! Transgenderism will TOTALLY distract her!

Thanks, Darrin, you’re the best! I’ll write when I know more….

AND DON’T TELL HOLLY I TOLD!!!! WHEN YOU HEAR SHE’S MARRIED, ACT SURPRISED!!!!!!!!!!!

J

Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine

Jane Harris

AAAARRRGH. MOTHERS. I mean, I love her and everything— how great is it to have someone in your life who, every time you complain about a guy, is all, “He must be secretly in love with you, that’s why he’s acting that way”?—but she has the BIGGEST MOUTH.

I mean, this is a CRISIS, her spilling the beans—well, sort of, anyway—to Mrs. Caputo.

And really, it’s my own fault, because I never should have said anything to her in the first place… to Mom, I mean. She hasn’t been able to hold a secret since… well, ever.

I just don’t know how to fix it. This new crisis, I mean. This is something Frau Schumacher’s not going to be able to shout at anybody about until it’s, you know, done.

As soon as I got that email I went to Holly and Mark’s room—Holly went to bed as soon as we got home from the restaurant, saying she had a headache… and no wonder, if she’d heard from her mother the way I suspected she had— and tapped on the door, since I knew Mark was down on the terrazza having a nightcap with Cal.

Anyway, Holly called “Come in” all weakly—she looked awful! Just AWFUL! I asked her if she’d heard from her mom and she said she had, and I said I was sorry and that it was all my fault.

Holly was just sweet as could be, and told me not to worry, that she didn’t blame me a bit….

But it’s all my fault. I just know it.

“I’m starting to think this wedding’s just not to be, anyway,” Holly said.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I told her that she HAS to marry Mark. That if she doesn’t, it will shake my faith in romantic love to its very core. That the two of them were made for each other. I mean, look at the way he has those really big feet, and hers are so little and dainty! And look how she hates tomatoes and he loves them, and he hates sauerkraut and she loves it…. They routinely finish each other’s plates.

And they BOTH love Seventh Heaven , not just Holly. Mark won’t admit it, but HE doesn’t answer the phone when I call on Monday nights, either. And Holly says HE always cries at the end, too.

I told all this to Holly and she just nodded weakly and said she guessed she was just tired. So I told her to go to sleep and that she’d feel better in the morning.

But of course this was not the most reassuring of conversations. So I went downstairs to find Mark— and ran smack into him coming up the stairs, since he said he wasn’t feeling so hot either, and had decided to go to bed early as well.

So I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into one of the empty bedrooms—I guess Cal didn’t end up taking the pink one after all—and told him what happened with my mom and Holly’s mom.

All he said was, “Aw, Jane. I wouldn’t worry about that.”

“But Holly’s devastated!” I cried. I can’t believe he couldn’t see that! I mean, it’s true I’ve known Holly since the first grade when her family moved onto my street and I went over and rang the bell and asked if they had any little girls for me to play with.

But Mark’s been living with her for the past two years! You would think he’d know her at least as well as I do! I mean, they sleep in the same bed!

“Holly’s just tired,” Mark said. “She’s beat, same as me. It’s been kind of a long day.”

“Then…” I have to admit, I had tears in my own eyes, as if I had just watched the end of Babe or an episode of Seventh Heaven , “you’re not thinking of calling it off?”

“The wedding?” Mark looked down at me like I was crazy. “No way. Why would I do that?”

“Well, because—”

And then, before I could stop myself, it all came tumbling out. The truth. About his friend Cal.

I know it wasn’t very nice of me. To tattle, I mean. Especially to a groom about his best man. Especially just thirty-six hours before the wedding.

But still. Cal totally deserves it. Who does he think he is, anyway, with his phenylethylamine and his thinking he can sabotage my best friend’s wedding by planting doubts in her—or worse, her husband-tobe’s—head?

Mark listened to everything I had to say (I talked really sotto voce , so Cal, still down on the terrazza, wouldn’t overhear) and, when I was done, he did the weirdest thing.

He threw back his head, and laughed.

Yes! Actually laughed! Like it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard!

Frankly, I don’t see what was so funny. I mean, if I had been about to get married, and I found out one of my friends was planning on using whatever influence she had over me to talk me out of it—

Well, that’s just ridiculous, because if I were set on marrying someone, no one would be able to talk me out of it.

Which is exactly what Mark said to me.

Mark: “Janie, Cal’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had. But no one is going to talk me out of marrying Holly. Particularly not someone whose own marriage was such a spectacular disaster.”

This information dried my tears right up.

And I know it was really wrong of me, but I totally couldn’t help going, “You knew Valerie, Cal’s ex?”

Mark: “Knew her? Yeah, I knew her. About as well as he did, anyway. And for about as long. I was there the night they met.”

Me: (extremely interested in this) “Really? And was she really beautiful? She was a model, right?”

Mark just shrugged. I have to admit, he didn’t look so hot. But maybe it was the light from the harsh Italian bulb inside a pinky shade.

Mark: “She was all right. Not my type. Tall and blonde and skinny. You know. Typical model.”

Me: (nodding sympathetically) “And very, very dumb, right?”

Mark: “Well, not so dumb that she didn’t know she’d latched onto a guy flush with his first-ever paycheck. And the whole modeling thing wasn’t going as well as she’d have liked. Contrary to what she was apparently led to believe by the Barbizon School or wherever she trained, modeling is quite hard. You have to get up early. And she didn’t like that.”

Wow! Mark really hated Cal’s wife! He hardly EVER says anything bad about anyone, seeing as how he’s, you know, nice and all.

“So…” I still wasn’t sure it was safe to leave Mark alone with his friend. “If Cal DOES try to talk you out of marrying Holly…”

“He’s not going to try any such thing,” Mark said. But at my skeptically raised eyebrows, he added, “Fine, well, he can try, but it won’t work. I can’t believe you, of all people, would even think such a thing is possible, Janie. I love Holly, and no one’s going to talk me out of marrying her. Not Cal. Not my mother. Not even Holly’s mother. Nothing is going to stand in the way of our doing it. NOTHING.”

Sadly, the conclusion of this very inspiring speech was somewhat anti-climactic, since about the time he uttered the words ‘Holly’s mother,’ Mark got kind of green around the gills, and went, “Um. Excuse me. I don’t feel so hot all of a sudden” and ducked into the bathroom, from which some explosive sounds soon emanated.

So I wished him well and left him for my own room, happy in the knowledge that, should Cal try anything, Mark, at least, would stay strong.

As for Holly… well, we’ll have to see. I THINK she knows she’s doing the right thing.

I’ll work on her some more in the car tomorrow.

Now to let Cal Langdon know he won’t be able to talk Mark out of it….

Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine

Jane Harris

Oh my God, you’ll never guess what I just caught Cal Langdon doing!!!! Mr. Hardened News Journalist was down on the terrazza, holding out a plate of Zio Matteo’s tuna to all of these scrawny stray cats that had come slinking over to the villa from the stables.

He jumped like I’d shot him when I said his name, and the cats all ran, but I saw them.