Every Boy's Got One (10 page)

We’re HERE!!!!!!!! At the hotel, I mean.

It’s the sweetest little place, tucked into a side street that isn’t wide enough to let a car coming from the other way pass by. And packed with people! I thought it was a pedestrian walkway and that the taxi driver was going the wrong way. But it turned out it was the Via di Buffalo, which is the street our hotel is on.

Still, it was kind of scary when those Italian school kids kept knocking on the car windows. I wonder what the driver yelled at them to make them run away like that. This is what comes of not having enough social programs for young people. Those kids should have had something better to do on a Saturday than stand around the Via di Buffalo, knocking on tourists’ car door windows.

Not that I want to tell another country how it ought to be bringing up its children, or anything. But still.

All I wanted to do was get to my room and take a nap, but Cal had to start arguing with the taxi driver when he saw the receipt. He said over his dead body was he paying 80 euros for a ride from the airport and that the taxi driver might think he could bilk the tourists that way, but that he, Cal, had been to Rome before, and he knew the fare from the airport wasn’t a cent over 40 euros. In English. Which it turned out the driver perfectly understood. And after a lot of grousing, he finally agreed that 40 euros would do.

So it’s good Mark invited Cal along with us. I guess.

Anyway, my room is so adorable, a tiny little blue-and-white thing with gold curtains that, when I opened them, turned out to be for a window that looks out over the most beautiful courtyard, with white doves flying around it, and bougainvillea spilling from window boxes all over the place, and a sky stretched over it that, I swear, looks bluer than the sky over Manhattan, somehow. It is EXACTLY like Helena Bonham Carter’s room in the pensione in
Room with a View
. Only there’s no view. Well, except for the courtyard and the sky.

And there are big bottles of water right here in my room, for later, and I turned on the TV, and everything was In Italian!

I mean, I knew it would be. It’s just SO WEIRD!

I thought I would be way too tired to want to go out and sightsee, but now that I’m finally here, I’m really stoked! I want to get out there and see EVERYTHING. After all, we only have about 24 hours in Rome before we leave for Le Marche.

On second thought, I didn’t sleep very well on the plane, thanks to The Armrest Nazi. I suppose I shouldn’t call him that anymore on account of him having been so tragically jilted all those years ago by that model.

But seriously, what did he expect, marrying a model? Modelizers get exactly what they deserve.

Maybe I’ll just rest my eyes for a minute or two….

Funny. I miss The Dude. I’m so used to his big gray body curled up to mine in bed, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get to slee—

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To: Cal Langdon

Fr: Arthur Pendergast

Re: The Book

Where are you this week? Nigeria? Well, wherever it is, just thought I’d give you the good news:
Sweeping Sands
made the
Times
extended list. Number 18. If you’d agreed to tour, we’d have probably debuted even higher. But I know, I know. You’ve got this wedding to go to. Oh, it’s also number 48 on the
USA Today
list. Which isn’t bad for a hardback.

Check out this cover sketch for the UK edition and let me know what you think.

Have you given any thought lately to what #2 is going to be about? The second book on your contract, I mean. No hurry, just that it’s due in a couple months, and you still haven’t submitted a proposal. Have you given any thought to dirty diamonds? That’s a pretty hot topic these days. And I hear Angola is nice this time of year.

Arthur Pendergast

Senior Editor

Rawlings Press

1418 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10019

212-555-8764

To: Cal Langdon

Fr: Aaron Spender

Re: Things

What’s this I hear about you throwing in the foreign-correspondence towel and taking a post stateside? What are you, going soft on me in your old age? It can’t be because of this multimillion-dollar book deal I hear you landed a while back, because the Cal Langdon I knew never cared about money. I distinctly recall you saying, that night we were trapped in that bomb shelter in Baghdad, that you never wanted to own any material goods because they might “weigh” you down.

All I can say is, you can buy a heck of a lot of pot holders with the kind of green you’re raking in, buddy.

Anyway, if you’re serious about staying home for a while, why work for that rag? Believe me, I’ve been there, and it is not where you want to be. Come on over to where the REAL news is being made. Print media is dead. It’s all about television these days. I can set you up with a really sweet deal, if you’re interested. Let me know.

Barbara says hello.

Aaron Spender

Senior Correspondent

CNN—New York

To: Cal Langdon

Fr: Mary Langdon

Re: Mom

So I heard from Dad you’re back in the States for a while—well, except for some jaunt to Italy to be a witness to some guy named Mark’s wedding (it’s not Mark from next door, is it? Didn’t he end up becoming a doctor or something else really boring? Typical).

I also heard you got a cool mil for some book you wrote, and that they want a second one. What are you going to do with all that scratch? Try to lure the ex back from Mr. Investment Guy?

Why don’t you send some of it my way? I’ll keep it safe for you. This whole weaving thing isn’t really working out, anyway, and I was thinking of heading up north with this guy who’s got a tiedye biz going out of his van.

Anyway, keep in touch. And welcome back to the good old US of A. It sucks just as much now as it did when you left.

Mare

PS Have you heard the latest about Mom? She actually has a SHOW. An ART show. Of her stupid lint/clothespin people. I don’t know how SHE can get a show and I can’t. My weavings are way more artistic than her lint people.

To: Cal Langdon

Fr: Graziella Fratiani

Re: You

What is this I hear about you coming to Roma and not calling to me? I would not have known a thing about it if Dolly Vargas hadn’t happened to mention it during our interview. You are a naughty, naughty boy. Where are you staying? Call me. You know the number. I will come by your hotel and give you a true Italian welcome.

Ciao, amore XXXX

Grazi

PDA of Cal Langdon

 

Art sent the UK cover design for Sandstoday. It’s got a very romantic feel to it that I’m not sure is entirely appropriate, considering the book’s subject matter. Well, I suppose if it tricks unsuspecting readers into buying it, expecting it to be a work of fiction about a mummy’s curse instead of a nonfiction treatise on Saudi Arabia’s tiring oil fields, all the better.

I can’t believe Aaron Spender is still among the living. I’d have assumed Barbara Bellerieve bit his head off and ate it on their wedding night. I still marvel at my own lucky escape from her clutches. If it hadn’t been for that Daisy Cutter…

And Mary. I guess that grand I sent her last month didn’t last very long. What the hell does she do with it all? It’s not like she ever has anything to show for it. She can’t smoke it ALL away, can she? I wish Mom and Dad had taken some control over her earlier in her adolescence. She probably wouldn’t still be living out of some guy’s van at the age of twenty-five.

But I guess they weren’t necessarily the best role models, as parents go, considering Dad’s obsession with the track and Mom’s conviction that she’s the next Grandma Moses. It’s surprising, actually, that Mary isn’t a bigger flake than she is….

Much like some people I could mention. It was amusing, coming from the airport, to hear Holly’s friend squeal at the sight of every monument—and every passing billboard. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone get so excited about a sign for mouthwash. I thought she was going to have a coronary when we drove by the Colosseum. I’m not entirely sure which impressed her more… the fact that it’s stood for over two thousand years, or the fact that Britney Spears was recently there, filming a television commercial (at least, that’s what Holly’s friend announced to all of us).

There is something refreshing about American enthusiasm for antiquity. I guess I forget, having been away so long, that there is still a place on this earth where there are no structures older than half a millennium. It must be impressive to see something that existed fifteen hundred years before the Mayflower….

Of course, if we hadn’t slaughtered all the Indians and destroyed their native lands, it would be different.

Good Lord. It just occurred to me. What if that wasn’t what she was impressed by? What if it was the Britney Spears thing?

But no. No, that couldn’t be. Not even an artist could be that shallow.

I’ll have to remember to change money later, if I can find a place with a decent exchange rate. I blew my last euro on that cab ride—

That was the concierge. Grazi is here. That didn’t take her long. I called her less than half an hour ago. Still, I thought she’d be coming over later tonight, not NOW.

I guess it would be ungentlemanly of me not to see her, though….

To: Julio Chasez

Fr: Jane Harris

Re: The Dude

Hi, Julio! Me, again! Just checking in, since I haven’t heard from you. How’s The Dude doing? Does he like that salmon paté I got him? I figured he’d appreciate a few treats, with me being gone. I hope you found the Pounce. I left it on the counter, with the oven mitts. Really, you should only need the Pounce if he tries to attack. Which he really shouldn’t, I mean, he KNOWS you. You two are buds. Right?

Well, let me know how he’s doing as soon as you get a chance. No biggie. You can just email, if you want. Or call. From my phone in the apartment. That way it won’t cost you anything. Don’t worry about the time difference, you can call at any time. I don’t mind being woken up, if it’s for The Dude.

J