One or Two Things I Learned About Love

by Dyan Sheldon

  Why is he mad at me? I didn’t do anything. Or maybe he isn’t mad at me. Maybe I’m the one who’s overreacting and it has nothing to do with Richie Deckle. It could just be a coincidence that Connor stopped being able to speak after he saw me with Richie. Maybe he’s just in a bad mood and I’m projecting. Like when you walk into a room and people are laughing and you think it’s at you, but really they’re laughing because someone made a joke. There could be dozens of reasons why he’s so sulky. At least if he was a girl you could blame it on his period. But maybe boys have monthly mood swings, too. They do have hormones. Only Connor’s mood swings happen more like every few days than every month. Is that normal?

  Nomi says the mere fact that I asked her if boys have monthly mood swings shows how immense my ignorance about the male section of our species really is. So I’m taking that as a NO.

  Ely and I worked out a pretty good juggling routine today with carrots. It kept my mind (and Ely’s) off the fact that my phone might as well have been at the bottom of Lake Michigan for all the messages and calls I got today. The only time I dropped a carrot was when I saw a red car. It was like being stabbed in the stomach with an arctic icicle.

  Went to Movie Club tonight. Louie wanted to know where Lover Boy was. Don’t you turn into a dachshund or fall asleep for a hundred years if you go anywhere without him? (You could be forgiven for not knowing he thought he was making a joke.) I said that Connor had practice. Jax wanted to know why he has to practise when he plays all the time. Nomi told him to shut up. The weird thing was that I was hanging out with my friends just like normal only I couldn’t enjoy myself. It was about as much fun as being pelted with rotten fruit. Only drier and not smelly. Whenever I thought of Connor I sank into a compost heap of despair. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I had my phone in my pocket on vibrate so I’d know if I had a message. But I didn’t feel anything. (Except miserable.) Then I started thinking maybe that didn’t mean I didn’t have a message. Maybe the message had come through while I was laughing or pushing Hitchcock away from the pretzels, and I missed it. He was waiting for me to answer. Waiting and imagining what I could be doing that was more important than answering my phone. Only I didn’t want to pull it out to check in front of everybody and then have them making comments and everything. So halfway through the movie I said I wasn’t feeling so hot and left. No messages.

  Gus came home while I was fixing myself a snack. She gave one quick look around the kitchen like she was casing the joint and wanted to know where Connor was. I said I figured he was either with his friends or at home. Then she wanted to know if we’d had a fight. I said of course not. We haven’t been surgically joined at the hip you know. We do do things apart. She said pardon me for breathing in your air space. Then she helped herself to a pickle. So I made her a sandwich too and we sat out on the a-deck-so-far to eat them. I asked Gus if she thought she’d ever been in love. She said no. I asked how she thought she’d know if she did fall in love? Does she think it would be instantaneous? Or would it sneak up on you like a tracker sneaking up on a bear? Gus said she figures she’ll know she’s in love if he slurps his soup and it doesn’t annoy her the way it annoys her when other people do it. This conversation was so normal that I decided to go for double or nothing. I asked her about monthly male mood swings. If anybody knows, Gus should. She looked at me like I’d all of a sudden switched languages. She said now what are you talking about, Hildy? I said you know how mercurial guys can be. One minute a big, neon smiley face and the next they couldn’t be grumpier if they’d crashed their car, knocked out their front teeth and lost their dog. I was wondering if it was hormones. Gus tilted her head to one side. Was I thinking of anyone in particular? I said no, it’s just something I’ve noticed with my friends. Your friends? Her head was still tilted. And her brows were drawn together so it looked like she had one long eyebrow. She said, “Really?” I said, “Really.” She said, “You can’t mean Louie.” Louie? How did she get Louie into this? I said of course not. And anyway I didn’t mean anybody specific, I just meant in general. Gus said, “You can’t possibly be talking about Ely.” I said for Pete’s sake, I’m not talking about anybody special. It was just a general observation. She shrugged and said she’d never noticed.

  I didn’t want Ely getting on my case again so I decided that today I’d act as if my life couldn’t get any better if it tried. Big smile. Sparkling personality. Cheerful. Songs being whistled. So here’s what I learned for sure and certain: I can cross Great Actor from my list of possible future occupations if I decide not to be a potter. Pretending that I was happy as a million-dollar lottery winner didn’t work. The Countess wanted to know if I had something on my mind. I said I’m homo sapiens. I always have something on my mind. She said, “Don’t play games with me, Hildegard. You know what I mean. You have about you the air of an exiled queen living in a studio apartment in Atlanta who longs for her palace and the barking of the dogs going off on a hunt.” Besides that, I weighed out her onions and then put them back in the basket on the counter. I admitted I was a little preoccupied. She studied me for a few seconds as if I was a tiara she was thinking of buying. “Is it that boyfriend of yours? Have you had a fight?” Ely was busy unpacking the truck so I said kind of. Very softly. She wanted to know what the fight was about. I didn’t say, “I think he’s mad at me because I was talking to Richie Deckle.” I said I didn’t know. He just isn’t speaking to me. She said so in that case you didn’t have a fight. One person can’t have a fight by himself. That’s what she thinks.

  By the end of the morning I’d moved from the compost heap of despair to the cesspool. Glugglugglug. In the afternoon Ely had to do some errands for Farmer John. He must’ve asked me six times if I was going to be all right by myself. As if I’ve never manned the stand alone. I said I might have trouble if a Barbarian army caught in a time warp suddenly came charging across the potato fields, screaming and waving their scimitars and trampling everything under the hooves of their sweating, wild-eyed horses, but I could probably handle anything involving bagging vegetables and giving change. Ely had been gone about an hour when Connor called! Part of me (the part that listens to Nomi Slevka) thought I shouldn’t answer it. Not right away. Let him suffer for at least four seconds. But the other part of me hit accept on the third ring. Connor said, “Hi.” Normal. I said, “Hi.” Cool. He said he thought he’d better get me before rush hour at the watering hole or he’d be too tired to push Call, hahaha. No laugh from me. I said we were pretty busy so I couldn’t really talk. He said he was sorry he hadn’t been in touch. But, you know… I didn’t know. He’d been arrested? He’d been on a space shuttle? He was defusing the bomb under a nuclear reactor? I didn’t say any of that (of course). I said, yeah. He said he really missed me. I pointed out that he was the one who stopped speaking to me. He didn’t say anything to that. So I said we needed to talk about this jealousy thing. He said it’s not jealousy. He isn’t jealous. It’s love. It has nothing to do with jealousy. It’s all about love. How can I not understand that? I said I guess I do. Then he said he couldn’t see me tonight because the Hashers have practice again because it’s the county championship coming up, but maybe we could do something tomorrow. I said, maybe. He said he’d call me after practice if I was going to be home. Everybody was playing beach volleyball tonight and I’d already said I’d go, but I told Connor I’d be home. My room was starting to reflect the disordered, confused and unhappy state of my heart (it looked like the garbage after the raccoons got at it), so I figured it was a good opportunity to stay in and clean it while I waited for Connor to call. I could’ve cleaned the White House. It’s midnight and I’m still waiting. Maybe he got hit in the head by a ball. I can’t believe I just wrote that! I thought love’s supposed to make you a nicer person, but it doesn’t seem to be doing that for me.

  The only action my phone’s seen tonight was a text from Ely saying he’s worried about me again. I texted back that there’s nothing to worry about. I hope t
hat I’m right.

  This morning it was my mom shouting my name that woke me up. “Get out here, Hildy. You have company!” I squinted at the clock. Who drops by before seven in the morning? On a weekend? My mom was back in bed by the time I got into the hall. I was keeping my eyes half closed in case I could go back to bed, too, but they snapped open when I saw who it was. It was Connor. In case I thought I was seeing things, he was in his work clothes and had his Hi, My Name Is Connor pin on his shirt. He was standing in the living room with a bag of doughnuts in one hand and a bunch of flowers in the other. I probably said something deep and meaningful like what are you doing here? He right away started apologizing. He knew it was really early and Saturday and he woke my mom up and everything but he had to see me before he went to work. He totally forgot about calling me last night because he got kind of involved in the game and hanging out with the guys. He said, “You know what it’s like.” And I had this really nasty thought. I thought, I used to know – when I did things spontaneously with my friends and didn’t feel guilty about everything. But I didn’t let it get out of my mouth. He held out the doughnuts and the flowers and begged me to say I wasn’t mad at him. It really is like I’m two people. The first me (the regular, everyday me) listened to him blahblahing about knowing it was practically dawn and was thinking sarcastic stuff like: Wow, Connor can tell time. The second me (the one I am around Connor) listened to him saying how sorry he was, and as soon as he stopped talking, said of course she wasn’t mad at him. Of course she understood. We kind of lunged for each other at the same time and got all immersed in make-up kissing. (Which may be even better than regular kissing.) We knocked over a lamp and I banged my knee on the coffee table and Connor went to pull us down on the couch and missed. And the next thing I knew Zelda was standing over us wearing her pink fairy wings and holding a bright green Brachyceratops. She wanted to know what we were doing. We jumped up so fast you’d think a volcano had started to erupt under us. Connor moaned and groaned and made a big deal of the time and how he was going to be late and had to hurry. He gave me a quick kiss, said bye to Zelda and bolted out of the front door. Where he stepped on Mrs Claws. Mrs Claws shrieked like something that wants to suck your soul out of you and throw it into the garbage. Connor screamed like someone who thinks something wants to suck their soul out of them and toss it away, jumped the stairs and sprinted to his car. Mom came out into the living room looking like she wasn’t too thrilled about being woken up twice in one morning. She wanted to know what Connor wanted. I held up the doughnuts. I said he brought us breakfast.

  Mr and Mrs Bowden had some country club thing to go to tonight so we had the house to ourselves. Connor was fully recovered from the morning’s trauma. He thinks we should put bells on Zelda and a light on Mrs Claws. I don’t think it’d work. Zelda would just drive everybody totally nuts ringing the bells all the time and Mrs Claws would turn off the light. Or eat it. Went for a moonlight swim in the lake. (I think I turned a little blue but it was still way romantic.) After that we went to the Snack Shack. I was really careful not to look at anyone. Found five dollars just outside the entrance because I had my eyes on the ground! After that we went back and sat out on the deck. Connor said that some day he wants to ride down the Mississippi on a raft like Huckleberry Finn. I said you do know that Huckleberry Finn didn’t have a personal flotation device, he had a runaway slave, right? Connor said but seriously, don’t you think that’d be a great thing to do? To tell the truth, that’s not really the first idea I’d connect with the words “great thing to do”. I’d connect it with mosquitoes and rapids. But I said yeah. And if Connor was on the raft with me it’d be immense. Counted six shooting stars! Which is pretty amazing since we weren’t really looking that hard.

  Lovelovelovelovelove…

  Connor’s started texting with the summer countdown. As of today there are 29 days left of vacation. (Twenty-nine we’re losing time…) After that we’re back on the treadmill of teenage life. I said it’s like he’s on the platform and I’m on the train, and the train is starting to move very slowly. And very slowly he’s getting farther and farther away. And all we can do is wave. He says every day is like a nail in his heart. You wouldn’t think a boy from around here would be so romantic. He’s like a poet.

  Had to miss yoga because I twisted my ankle last night when we were leaving the Snack Shack. Nomi wanted to know if that was because I only have eyes for Connor and wasn’t looking where I was going? That’s one way of putting it. There were a lot of people around so I was looking at Connor and I missed a step. He was really upset that I was hurt. You should’ve seen him. You’d think I’d fallen off the roof. My ankle wasn’t that bad, but he carried me on his back all the way to his house. (How sweet is that?) And then he made me soak it and he bandaged it and everything. It’s OK really. And it’s much better today. But I didn’t want to try standing like a tree on it. Not unless it was a tree that’s just been felled.

  I was going to spend the day at home but Nomi, Maggie and Sara came by after yoga to take me to the beach with them. At first I said no. I don’t need a crystal ball to know that beach + girls + swimsuits = recipe for major meltdown if Connor finds out. (If he thinks they’re trying to attract guys when they’re dressed for bowling, what’ll he think when they’re not really dressed at all?) I said I could hobble around and everything but probably I should rest my foot. Nomi said I could rest it on the sand. She reminded me that I’ve always loved the beach and here I was on a perfect beach day wanting to sit at home with my foot in a bucket. Sara said it’s not like I had to stand up at the beach. I was just going to sit on a blanket. And the salt water would do my foot good. Maggie said for Pete’s sake, summer’s almost over. There’ll be plenty of days to sit in the house when there’s five feet of snow on the ground. And let’s not forget how much my new swimsuit cost. I should get some use out of it while I can in case it doesn’t fit next year. But it was Nomi (face of an angel, mind of a detective) who had the clinching argument. She got all scrutinous-looking and wanted to know if the fact that I seemed to be avoiding my friends this summer had something to do with Mr Coffee. I said I didn’t know what she was talking about. Exactly when was I supposed to be avoiding my friends? Nomi said all the time. I said she was really exaggerating. I admitted I have been pretty busy with Connor, but a relationship’s like a tiny seed. It needs time and attention to make it grow. Nomi said, “Well you’re not busy with Connor today, Hildegard.” She was right, I wasn’t. I didn’t even have to be home early or anything because Connor had another practice tonight. And because of those two facts I couldn’t come up with a lie fast enough to argue with her. I know Connor worries about me so much because he cares about me so much. But I also know that he has nothing to worry about. When you look at it like that what’s the big deal?

  So now I know: guilt’s the big deal. The minute we hit the beach I had one of those blinding moments of understanding. Like Custer when he suddenly realized the other side had a lot more warriors than he’d bargained for. I’d made a really big mistake. The beach is all flat and open. Which means you can be seen from every direction. I know, I know. Realistically, what were the chances that Connor would leave work in the middle of a shift and come to the beach looking for me? Not as small as the chances of his parents suddenly texting him to tell him he’s adopted, but not huge either. Only I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was possible he’d just show up. That he might. Things like that do happen. Whole books and plays have been written around that kind of idea. And I knew that even if the beach was a lot more crowded than it was – if there were 20,000 people packed on it and they were all under umbrellas or cabanas – the first thing he’d see would be me. Sitting there in my two-piece with my friends in their two-pieces. And he’d know that I lied about not wearing my swimsuit in public. And he’d think that when he isn’t around I sneak out with my friends in my swimsuit to pick up boys. That I’m just like every other girl he’s known. And who could blame him? No
t me. I felt so guilty that if someone had come up to me and said, “Did you do it?” I’d have said, “Yes.” I wouldn’t even bother asking, “Do what?” So I refused to take off my T-shirt and shorts. No swimming. No sunbathing. Just me on the blanket with a hat on my head reading a book. They all thought I was nuts. But I didn’t care. And I was OK so long as we were all hanging out and talking like usual. But then Nomi, Sara and Maggie went for a swim. I watched them fooling around in the water for a while, but then the nervous feeling came back like a criminal to the scene of the crime. Of course, Connor had been texting me when he could and I’d been answering. Nt mch. Bttr. Miss u 2. But then he said how he felt bad for me cooped up in the house on my day off, and I wondered if he was being sarcastic. You know, in case he really did know where I was. That he has that special surveillance equipment Gran talks about that can tell a person’s location from their cell phone. Guilt whacked me again, like a tennis ball going 130mph. I figured I should check out the parking lot. Just to make sure. If his car wasn’t there, then he wasn’t either. I took all our valuables with me and limped up to the boardwalk. Heaved an immense sigh of relief. There was no sign of Connor’s car. That put me in such a good mood that I decided to get some drinks and snacks for everybody.

  There was hardly anyone sitting at the tables but there were a lot of people getting stuff. I was waiting to pay, maybe halfway to the register, when I saw him outside. Connor was standing with some guys I didn’t recognize. He must’ve come with them. That’s why I didn’t see his car. I panicked. The thing about panic is that it only involves the let’s-get-out-of-here part of the brain. You don’t assess the situation. You don’t weigh your options. You just move. I moved. I turned around and pushed my way past all the people behind me. Soda sloshed out of the cups on my cardboard tray. Nachos flew to the floor. I was heading for the ladies’ room. There was no way he’d be going in there. I didn’t make it. Somebody grabbed my shoulder. My life was over. All my dreams of love and romance were dead in the sea of disaster, bloated and foul and floating face-down. I was a terrible person who’d become practically a compulsive liar and I was being punished for it. Why didn’t I stay home? Why didn’t I stay on the blanket with a beach towel over my head? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? All I had to console me, the only crumb of comfort I had, was that I wasn’t in a swimsuit. At least there was that. Very, very slowly, I turned around. It wasn’t Connor. It was the manager. It said so on his shirt. I started breathing again. And looking past him to see where Connor was. The manager wanted to know where I thought I was going with all that unpaid-for food. The boy I thought was Connor wasn’t. He wasn’t anything like him. The manager wanted to know if I’d heard him. Where did I think I was going with all that unpaid-for food? I couldn’t very well say the bathroom. I said I thought I’d dropped my wallet. Then, because I hadn’t dropped my wallet, I had to make a big thing of going through my bag and being surprised when I found it. Then I had to pay for what was left of our drinks and nachos. Which wasn’t that much. Nomi, Sara and Maggie were all like what is this? Did you get this off somebody’s table or something? I said some little kid ran into me as I came out of the snack bar. I said I was lucky to be alive. At least that part was true.