Meg Cabot - Every Boy’s Got One

Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine

Jane Harris

Must write fast, as he’s downstairs, getting more strawberries.

He loves me! At least as much as I—I can’t believe I’m admitting this—love him. YES! It’s true! I love him! I could shout it from the rooftop: I LOVE HIM!

And I don’t think that’s the phenylethylanamine talking, either.

Endorphins? Definitely.

Oh, my God. I love Cal Langdon. CAL LANGDON.

And you know, really, the only reason he doesn’t like ER is that he’s never seen it. It turns out they don’t have ER in Libya or wherever it is he’s been all these years. I’m sure he’ll come around as soon as he’s caught up with everything that’s happening at County.

I showed him my Wondercat sketch book, too, and he laughed at my most recent cartoon. Cal Langdon LAUGHED. At one of my cartoons!!!! And called me a comic genius!

Which I already knew. But it was nice to hear it from him.

Oops, here he comes. I promised I’d stop writing about him in here.

For now.

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To: Arthur Pendergast <a.pendergast@rawlingspress.com>

Fr: Cal Langdon <cal.langdon@thenyjournal.com>

Re: The Book

Hey, Arthur. I was thinking. How would you feel if my second book was on Le Marche? In case you don’t know, Le Marche is one of Italy’s lesser-known regions, filled with breathtaking vistas of ancient castles atop rolling picturesque hillsides, shady olive groves, curved white beaches, delicious seafood, and earthy but delicate wines like the Verdicchio, considered among the finest of thevini da meditazione.

This is a region in which family-run businesses thrive. It’s a nearly self-sufficient area that many countries—for instance, those formerly dependent on the exportation of oil—might do well to emulate.

I’m thinking about renting a place here for a few months with my girlfriend to do some research. You might have heard of her— Jane Harris? She’s the creator of Wondercat , that hilarious comic strip about the cat. I’m sure you’ve read it.

Anyway, let me know what you think.

Cal

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To: Cal Langdon <cal.langdon@thenyjournal.com>

Fr: Arthur Pendergast <a.pendergast@rawlingspress.com>

Re: The Book

Le Marche? What the hell are you talking about? No one’s ever heard of Le Marche. Who the hell is going to buy a book about some place they never heard of?

Let me tell you something: if Sweeping Sands wasn’t Number 2 on the Times Bestseller list right now, I’d tell you what you can do with Le Marche.

But as it is….

Go with God.

Arthur Pendergast

Senior Editor

Rawlings Press

1418 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10019

212-555-8764

PS Girlfriend? Since when do you have a girlfriend? I thought you were monogaphobic.

PPS What the hell is a Wondercat?

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To: Listserv <Wundercat@wundercatlives.com>

Fr: Peter Schumacher <webmaster@wundercatlives.com>

Re: JANE HARRIS

Listen up, kids! You are not believing what is happening! JANE HARRIS, creator of our beloved Wundercat, is STAYING here in Le Marche! Yes! At least, this is what she tells me today when I come in the morning to bring the brotchen.

Actually, JANE HARRIS does not come to the door this morning when I bring the brotchen. JANE HARRIS does not come downstairs until very late this afternoon to get the brotchen. And then she is looking very tired. But very good, as usual!

And Cal Longdon, who comes to the door with JANE HARRIS, asks if I know any houses to rent in Le Marche, because he wants to write a book about us! US!!!

YES! Because Le Marche RULES!!!!

And JANE HARRIS says she thinks she had better stay in Le Marche, too, to help Cal Longdon write his very important book about US!!!!

And when I ask her what I know you are thinking—“WHAT ABOUT WUNDERCAT?” she says, “Oh, I can draw Wondercat anywhere.”

YES!!!! JANE HARRIS IS MOVING TO ITALY! AND YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST. Courtesy of me, #1 Wundercat Fan Of All Time!

Wundercat Lives—4eva!

Peter

Private to Annika: When you are done with Wundercat Volume 1, tell me, and I will bring you Volume 2 on my motorino.

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To: Jane Harris <jane@wondercat.com>

Fr: Claire Harris <charris2004@freemail.com>

Re: Your phone call

Honey, I’m just writing because last night when you called, I could have sworn you said you were staying in Italy. With Cal Langdon. Permanently.

Daddy says I must have dreamed the whole thing. But I don’t think I would have dreamt the part where you said if your Wondercat development deal ends up going through, of course Cal will move back to New York with you, because the two of you are in a committed relationship and fully support one another in your careers.

That’s just not the kind of thing I usually dream about.

And another thing: this morning when I was at the Kroger Sav-On to buy some more Band-Aids for Dad (he put a nail through his thumb hanging up another watercolor from his sister—I wish she’d take up a new hobby), I ran into Marie Caputo, who asked me—with, I must admit, a smile I didn’t care for—how it felt to be gaining a son. Gaining a son? What is she talking about, sweetheart? She can’t have meant you and that Cal Langdon, can she? Are you two getting married? Does Holly know something I don’t know, and maybe told her mother?

How can you marry Cal Langdon, honey? Last time I talked to you, you said you hated him. And that he wouldn’t stop looking at your shoes.

None of this makes any sense to me. I don’t think you ought to be staying in Italy with—much less marrying—someone you’ve only known for a week.

I hope Marie misunderstood. In fact, I’m SURE she must have. You’ve always been such a sensible girl.

Besides, what about Malcolm, that nice investment banker you’ve been seeing?

Daddy’s right, and that phone call last night must have been just a dream. Because you would never move to Italy without The Dude.

Oh, wait, I asked you that last night, didn’t I? And you said you were going to pay your super’s son to bring The Dude to you there….

But that can’t be right. You would never do anything so silly.

Well, ignore me. Hope you have a nice time on the rest of your trip.

And try to be nice to that Cal Langdon. I’m sure he can’t help being in love with you. And you always did have very pretty feet.

Love,

Mom

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To: Julio Chasez <julio@streetsmart.com>

Fr: Jane Harris <jane@wondercat.com>

Re: The Dude

Hi, Julio! Listen, I was wondering. How would you feel about an all-expense paid trip to Italy?

Why We Didn’t Get Married in Las Vegas Like Normal Americans

Maybe it’s because I also write books for younger readers, and so most of the 200 or so emails I get a day are from kids. But the vast majority of the emails in my inbox contain this question: “Where do you get your inspiration?”

Inspiration seems to be a big thing for my readers, but I have to say it’s not something I ever think about. Whenever anybody asks, I always have to pause and think, “Where DID I get the inspiration for that story?” The truth is, I usually can’t remember. To me, the story is generally the important thing, not how I thought it up.

My book Every Boy’s Got One is different, though. I got the inspiration for the story—a tale of love and elopement in the Italian countryside—from my own marriage, which was… well, an elopement in the Italian countryside.

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a tale of love and elopement in the Italian countryside

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I didn’t think writing a story about a bride would be all that interesting, though, either to me or my readers. It seemed to me that the story of how a woman came to BE a bride in the first place would be the more interesting tale.

So when I decided to write a novel based on my own wedding, I chose for my main characters the best man and maid of honor of the couple who are eloping, basically telling the story of my elopement (with, I’ll admit, numerous fabrications) from the point of view of my maid of honor.

Fabrication Number One: I didn’t actually have a maid of honor for my Italian elopement. The girl who was supposed to be my maid of honor—the best man’s girlfriend— bailed on him the week before our wedding.

Fabrication Number Two: In Every Boy’s Got One , the elopement takes place in Le Marche, in the village of Castelfidardo, the accordion-making capital of the world. My own wedding was hundreds of kilometers from there, in a town near Monaco called Diana San Pietro, in Ligeria. I changed settings because it’s been eleven years since I was last in Ligeria, and I was in Le Marche less than a year ago, so I felt the details would be more authentic.

Fabrication Number Three: In Every Boy’s Got One , the characters spend a lot of time emailing people on their Blackberries. I did not actually have a Blackberry, or access to the Internet, while I was getting married. In 1993, when my wedding took place, the Internet was not yet that widely known or available. At least to me.

These are, however, pretty much the ONLY ways in which my real-life wedding differed from the one in my book. And here’s the blow-by-blow to prove it!

“You kid me, si ?” The secretario eyed us suspiciously over his typewriter.

My husband-to-be and I exchanged glances. The fact was, we werenot kidding him. We wanted to get married in Diano San Pietro, a sleepy village on the Italian Riviera, just a few miles from Monaco. A popular beach resort in summer, the Ligurian town was relatively deserted in March, except for the natives, who farmed the olive groves that dotted the steep, climbing hills, and ran (when you could rouse them from their afternoon naps) the many restaurants and cafes that lined the beautiful shore.

Considering how deserted the town was, the secretario ’s reluctance to marry us seemed odd. There certainly didn’t appear to be much going on in the Comune di Diano San Pietro, the city hall. With the exception of ourselves, the white-haired secretario, our translator, and would-be best man, Ingo, the building was empty. It didn’t look to me like there were a lot of people banging down the doors of Diano San Pietro city officials demanding to be married.

And yet the secretario looked extremely unwilling even to entertain the idea of two Americans being wed in his village.

“You do not understand,” he entreated us in broken English. “We here in Italy take the institution of marriage very seriously. There is much to be done. There are many forms that must be filled out.”

That was when we handed him the Stato Libero we had filled out in the office of the Consulate General of Italy back in New York before we’d left for Europe. Signed by four witnesses unrelated either to us or to one another, we had been assured by the consulate that this declaration was the only form we would need in order for us to be married on our vacation in Italy.

But for good measure, we also relinquished our birth certificates, which we’d had translated into Italian, and our passports. Italians, we explained, as nicely as we could, were not the only people in the world who took the institution of marriage seriously.

The secretario took the forms from us with an expression of bewildered chagrin. This was clearly not what he needed an hour before his lunch break—his three -hour lunch break.

Non-Fabrication Number One: In Italy, everything really does shut down from twelve to three, just like in Every Boy’s Got One : banks; shops; grocery stores; you name it, all in an effort to allow employees to enjoy lunch with their families.