Every Boy's Got One (24 page)

PDA of Cal Langdon

God bless Zio Matteo. The man may not care much about his home’s electrical wiring, but at least he keeps a well-stocked liquor cabinet. Mark and I finished off the better part of a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch, and though it’s a bit hard to type this, with my fingers feeling so numb, at least I got the picture of that snake out of my head at last.

The rain’s finally stopped, too. The stars have come out, and there’s a lovely warm breeze—slightly scented with horse manure—coming from the east. The pool and the wet stone surface around it are glistening in the moonlight, and somewhere in the distance—over the snoring of Mark, passed out facedown at the table beside me—I hear the braying of a donkey. It reminds me of those nights in Baghdad with Barbara Bellerieve, before she finally gave up on getting a ring out of me and hooked up with Aaron Spender—poor bastard.

Something which I realize has begun to happen with alarming regularity. Women I’ve slept with settling down with someone else, I mean.

I guess I shouldn’t complain. God knows I’m not looking to register at Williams-Sonoma with any of them.

But it is a bit strange that all of my friends are pairing off. Mark, for instance. Well, not that I wouldn’t have expected it of Mark, seeing as how he never exactly blazed any trails for rugged individuality in his lifetime. He does grill a mean turbot though.

But even people I’d pegged as lifelong bachelors—John Trent, for instance, over at the Chronicle—and Spender are taking the plunge.

Will it be long before I am the only single male my age left in the world? And if so… why? Don’t these guys realize what they’re getting themselves into?

I will admit, in Mark’s case, the situation doesn’t seem as dire as I once thought, despite what Ruth Levine might claim. Holly appears to be a cheerful, caring companion, who doesn’t fall short in the looks department, either. She put together a wicked antipasto to go with the fish, an artfully arranged platter of marinated artichokes, mushroom, olives, fresh mozzarella, roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes, and parmesan, all drizzled with olive oil and balsamic.

And when Mark mentioned something self-deprecating about his column, she chastised him, and proudly told me that his pieces are the Health section’s most popular.

And when we sat down at the table her friend Jane had set—somewhat whimsically, with, I believe, every candle from the house on it, since we were dining al fresco on the logia, as the rain beat down just beyond the stone arches around us—Holly insisted on taking a picture, to mark our first meal at Villa Beccacia.

Then Ms. Harris—rather pointedly—insisted on taking a picture of Mark and Holly together—“To remember one of your last meals as an unmarried couple”—and the two of them wrapped their arms around each other….

Well, I could see Jane’s point about the two of them being perfect for each other. They are a lovely couple. Holly doesn’t strike me—so far—as the type who’ll, as soon as she gets a ring on her finger, quit her job and divide her days between Neiman-Marcus and her Pilates classes at the gym—

Must remember to stop judging all women by Valerie.

If Valerie had been at our evening meal, for instance, instead of Holly, she’d have consumed two of Zio Matteo’s excellent bottles of montepolciano all on her own. And if Valerie had been here, she’d have made sure that the conversation, instead of flowing humorously from the troubles with the oven to the possible sex life of Frau Schumacher, would have revolved solely around her.

And afterward, of course, she’d have staggered to the toilet and heaved everything she’d just consumed into it.

Somehow, I can’t picture Holly Caputo doing any of these things.

Still, that doesn’t mean Mark is completely out of danger. A man can enter into a marriage thinking he’s getting one thing, when the reality is, he’s getting something very, very different. Mark’s Holly may seem like a perfect helpmate at this point in their relationship, but who’s to say once the blush is off the rose, so to speak, and they’re declared man and wife—or uomoand moglie,as the case may be—she isn’t going to turn into a stark raving bitch, demand that he make more money in order to buy her more expensive jewelry and spend all of her time obsessively weighing herself and recording every morsel that passes through her lips in a food journal?

I think Mark needs be made aware of this possibility.

And if he were conscious right now, I would make sure he knew.

As it is, however, I will have to wait until morning, and hope that we have another chance to talk privately before we make the trip to the marriage license office.

Speaking of hoping for a chance to talk, I mentioned to Ms. Harris that I was desirous of a private audience with her this evening, and she promptly disappeared into the house, never to return. I looked for her not long ago, and saw that she had retired to her room, the door of which was firmly closed. I have no doubt that, if there is a lock, she’d turned it.

For a woman who’s capable of sending such blatantly hostile emails, she is remarkably reticent about face-to-face confrontations. It’s always been my experience that women enjoy telling men what to do. Jane Harris, on the other hand, seems only willing to do this when it is her fingers, not her lips, doing the telling.

She strikes me as a very odd girl, overall.

But then, she is an artist… and a popular one, at least if the drooling half-wit boy from next door, who can’t seem to take his eyes off her whenever they happen to be in the same room together, is to be believed.

How well I recognize his pain. I believe I had the same sort of all-consuming crush on my tenth-grade science teacher, Miss Huff.

Although Miss Huff did not exactly share Jane Harris’s most impressive attributes… those slim ankles—the slenderness of the right one emphasized by that grinning cat’s head—and that insouciant smile.

Insouciant. God. How in hell did I get a book contract, anyway?

Speaking of which… what in hell am I going to write about for my next book?

Oh, well. Much too tired—and too late—to think about it now. Will put this away and get to bed. It must be past midnight, and I’m still on New York time. Thoughts on the follow-up to Sweeping Sands—and further speculation about Ms. Harris—will have to wait until tomorrow.

PDA of Cal Langdon

One last thing before I go, though:

She still seems bizarrely fixated with the fly of my jeans. I am starting to wonder if Mark didn’t resuscitate that ridiculous rumor from our days at Ohio State, about my having a super-sized wang, and share it with Holly, who in turn shared it with Ms. Harris. How else to explain why I keep catching her staring in that general vicinity?

If this is true, I will be forced, simply, to kill Mark. You would think that, at his age, he’d be over such childish pranks.

But he does work in the sciences, and those gifted in that arena do occasionally seem not to have quite as evolved a sense of humor as the rest of us.

Remember to ask him tomorrow.

To: Listserv

Fr: Peter Schumacher

Re: JANE HARRIS

Good morning all of you fans of Wundercat! I go now to take my motorino into town to get the brotchen for JANE HARRIS! She is not yet awake. I can see that she has not yet opened the curtains of her bedroom window.

But when she does, she will find that there is fresh brotchen to enjoy with her coffee! Courtesy of me, #1 Wundercat Fan Of All Time!

Wundercat Lives—4eva!

Peter

To: Mark Levine

Fr: Customer Service New York Journal Travel Privileges

Re: Car Rental

Dear Sir,

Our great apologies for the misunderstanding concerning your vehicle. Our offices, as you discovered, are not open on Sundays. However, if you return the automobile you were assigned to the car rental agency in Ancona on Monday, we will happily allow you to exchange it for the four-door sedan you mentioned.

Sally Marx

New York Journal Travel Specialist