One or Two Things I Learned About Love (2 page)

On the way home, Nomi and I went over to Gran’s since we were nearby. Everybody jokes about old ladies needing help to open the ketchup and change a light bulb, but my gran’s not that kind of old lady. She’s the kind who wants you to help her put up shelves or paint the living room. She can open her own ketchup. She’d just finished fixing that wonky step by the back door when we got there. Gran loved the fans. She wants one. She said it was about time we got something you don’t have to plug in or charge. Gran hates cell phones and computers and all that stuff. She won’t even have an answering machine. She doesn’t want to be in touch with people 24/7. She likes alone time. She says imagine if Romeo and Juliet had had cell phones. No more tragic love story. Just, “Don’t do it. I’m on my way.”

The parents were arguing when I got home. Because the washing machine broke again. My mother wants to buy a new one. My father says he can fix the one we have. But the fight wasn’t about that. The fight was about all the other things my father’s going to fix. “You’re still fixing Zelda’s stroller and she’s almost ten!” shouted my mother. “Exactly!” Dad shouted back. “She doesn’t need it any more!” Left them to it and went next door to help Louie edit his video of the barbecue before my mom remembered about the deck. Dad’s been building that for almost as long as he’s been fixing Zelda’s stroller.

Dreamed
I was sleeping in Hell. I kept begging the Devil to turn on the AC. I would have cried, but I’d used up all the water in my body on sweat. The Devil wasn’t moved by my pleas. (He sounded a lot like Gus when he laughed.) He said AC was bad for the environment. “If God wanted you to have air conditioning, you’d have a unit attached to the top of your head,” said the Devil. (He sounded just like my dad.) Woke up to screaming and shouting. If I ever wake up and the house is quiet, I won’t know where I am. Dragged my limp, wet body into the kitchen to see what was going on. My parents were having an argument about how to boil water. Got a glass of juice and went to sit on the patio. Texted Nomi to see if she wanted to go to the beach. Then Cristina called to see what we were doing. I said Nomi and I figured the only way we could avoid heatstroke was to spend the day in the supermarket or on the beach, so we were going to the beach because we couldn’t wear our new swimsuits in the supermarket. Cristina said she’d come, too. I said she must be nuts. Not only does her house have AC, it has a real swimming pool. Cristina said it would be nuts
not
to come to the beach. Her sister and her friends have taken over the pool like foot fungus. She’d much rather hang out with Nomi and me. And who wouldn’t? There’s been no official policy statement, but the Mob avoids the Palacios’ place if Lenora’s around. I know Gus can be a bigger pain in the butt than being injected with a horse needle, but next to Lenora Palacio she’s God’s Gift to Sisterhood. You have to try to imagine what that means. It’s like saying Gus is a very small snowflake and Lenora is Alaska. But I still bet Cristina would’ve stayed in the chill cabinet that is Casa Palacio if her boyfriend wasn’t 200 miles away teaching six-year-olds how to toast marshmallows.

Zelda refused to go to camp today, so my mother made me take her with us to the beach. (In this family, Gus got the looks, Zelda got the personality disorder and I get taken advantage of.) Zelda, naturally, decided to be invisible. Which meant she wore a white robe that reaches her feet (it used to be Gus’s, but she disowned it after Louie videoed her climbing in the kitchen window in it) and the enormous sombrero with
Mexico
across the front that Gran brought back from her cruise to Cancún. Which meant Zelda was about as invisible as a herd of elephants with bells and lights on. It was excruciating being seen with her. (Heads turned like windmills in a gale.) So, of course, the beach was really packed. (There are obviously a lot more people who don’t have AC or pools than I thought.) A couple of people wanted to know what was up with the sombrero and the fans. They thought we were in some kind of ad or something. Nomi told them we were in the video for a new band called Keep Cool, and they started looking around for the film crew. We left Zelda on the blanket and went for a swim (she’s afraid of water unless it’s in a container). We figured she wasn’t going anywhere since the only thing she could see was her feet. When we got back to the blanket she was gone. Her robe was in the sand like a puddle and the sombrero was on top of it. Nomi said it was like when the wicked witch melts in
The Wizard of Oz
. Melting is the one thing I don’t worry about with Zelda. Cristina was afraid someone had taken her. I’d like to see them try. Let’s not forget the time she nearly got Mom arrested at the mall because she didn’t want to leave and Mom had to drag her to the car, screaming like she was being murdered. And then she told the security guards that she’d never seen my mother before in her life. Anyway we finally found her at the snack bar getting an ice pop. Jax’s dad had given him the afternoon off, so he showed up with a cool bag full of soda and a fresh outlook. He and Zelda built a sand space station while Nomi, Cristina and I sat under the umbrella playing cards. Zelda let Jax wear the sombrero. With her in the white robe and Jax in the hat, it was like
Star Wars
meets
Viva Zapata
!

Tonight my father decided to work on the deck, but he couldn’t find his spirit level. My mother said it was wherever he’d put it. Like everything else he can’t find. He said it wasn’t. He wanted to know how he’s expected to finish the deck when she’s constantly moving his tools. My mother said she’s not the only person who lives in our house besides him. In case he hadn’t noticed.

Went back to Louie’s to work on the editing. Who would’ve guessed when Louie’s dad gave him his old camera to fool around with when he was nine that it would become an obsession? Or that he’d be so good at it? Really. There are actually people all over the world who wait for his postings. Now his father says he’s afraid to go for the paper in his pyjamas in case he winds up in one of Louie’s videos looking like an escaped patient. Mr Masiado thinks he created a monster. He won’t be the only one. Wait till Mr Pryce finds out he’s on YouTube.

Work
today. It was really busy, so there was no time for Ely to give me a juggling lesson. All my favourites came by. Broccoli Man. Blue Eyeshadow Lady. Green Pick-up Guy. The Countess. Farmer John thinks we’re so busy because we’re witnessing a cultural revolution. He says nowadays folks want their vegetables to come out of the earth, not out of plastic. Ely says that’s not why we’re busy. We’re busy because we’re on the beach road and folks don’t want to drive all the way to the supermarket if they don’t have to. Especially when they’re sandy, damp and smell like seaweed. All I know is that my fan got a lot of positive comments from the buyers of ground-grown vegetables. Except for Broccoli Man, who wouldn’t get out of his car until I put it away. But all the more normal people said that it was both practical and elegant. The Countess said the ladies at court always had fans. Blue Eyeshadow Lady said she’d always wanted a fan but she didn’t know where to get one (so I told her). Even Green Pick-up Guy said he thought it was very elegant. He said I made him think of the movie
Gone with the Wind
. Ely wanted to know which part: when they burn down Atlanta? He said he figured it’d be a lot more elegant if I was wearing a long, ruffled dress and a hibiscus in my hair. Not shorts, a
Lobster Lilly’s
T-shirt and a baseball cap.

Did some more editing with Louie tonight. We’re calling the new video
Flame Broiled
and the background music’s the really old Burger King “hold the pickles, hold the lettuce” jingle. When we got to the part where Jax and I threw the wading pool over Mr Pryce I finally understood what people mean when they say “I thought I’d die laughing”. We both nearly stopped breathing.

Maggie showed Grady some of Louie’s videos. Grady already knew the one Louie made of his dogs Hitchcock and Scorsese arguing over who was going to sit in Mr Masiado’s chair (over 900,000 hits on YouTube). He’s watched it five times and he always laughs out loud. He thinks Louie’s a genius. Louie’s smart, but I’m not so sure about the genius part. He can’t even defrost, let alone cook. When his parents went away for that weekend in May, he ate nothing but cereal for three days. And let’s not forget that I’m the one who did Hitchcock’s voice, totally ad-lib (
and
helped with the editing).

When I got home, the kitchen looked like we’d been robbed. All the cabinets were open and there was stuff all over the counters. Only it wasn’t burglars. Mom was out and Dad was looking for the iced-tea mix. Zelda was on the floor, wailing like she was being torn apart by tyrannosaurs (she wanted iced tea). Mrs Claws was stuck in a bag of Cheez Doodles – all you could see of her was her butt and her tail, and when I dragged her out she was all dusty and orange. Dad was standing in the middle of the wreckage, looking distraught. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Mom makes iced tea from scratch. Went to my room. Was talking to Nomi when the quiet of the night was shattered by hysterical laughter. My mother was home. I wonder if my parents ever had a romantic relationship. It seems unlikely. Which could explain why Gus has never found anyone she likes for more than a few weeks and I can’t even get a date.

For
a joke, I went to work in the dress Gus bought when she was maid of honour at our cousin’s wedding. It’s pink and long and makes me think of birthday cakes and koi ponds (birthday cakes because it’s pink and frilly, and koi ponds because that’s what Gus pushed the best man into when he made a pass at her). Ely thought the dress was hilarious. I’ve never seen him laugh so much. Some people stopped just because they saw me bagging potatoes in my prom-queen dress and fluttering my fan and wanted to know what was going on. Ely says that we should have one day a week when we both dress up. We could have themes. He figures it’d be good for business. The Countess said I added a touch of class to the stand. (And I quote: “If the Czarina was forced to sell vegetables, she’d dress for the occasion.”) Green Pick-up Guy says he’s going to call me Scarlett from now on.

After Gus left on her date tonight, I found my dad standing in the living room staring out of the window like there was something out there besides the Masiados’ house and the road. I said don’t tell me that spaceship’s back. He wanted to know if it was Zak or Elroy with Gus. I said it was Abe Zimmerman. He said, “Who?” I reminded him that she dated Abe for a while when she was in high school. He’s the one who backed into the mailbox. My dad said, “He’s got a new car.” I said, “Fair’s fair. We got a new mailbox.”