One or Two Things I Learned About Love Read Free Page B

always says it’s the only member of the family who never gives her a hard time. (Which is true from what I’ve seen.) Anyway, eyewitnesses (Cristina and her cousin) say that when she heard the howls, Mrs P came charging out of the house like cavalry charging out of a fort in an old Western. Only not on a horse, but on four-inch heels. She went straight into the pool too. Mrs P and Dolittle were both so traumatized by this experience that Lenora and her friends are banned from the pool until further notice. So tonight we all went over there to hang out. I think Louie was hoping Mrs Palacio and Dolittle would fall in again because he brought his camera, but if he thought he was going to make a series of summer disasters he was out of luck. Dolittle’s not allowed anywhere near the pool without his new life jacket on. It’s bright pink. He looks like a chunk of bubblegum with feet. Mrs P admired our fans. She said they reminded her of Old Mexico. I said I’d tell Mrs Gorrie. It’ll make her year. Cristina insisted that we all act like we were having the best time since swimming pools were invented so her sister would be jealous. So we laughed and shrieked and splashed around like we were advertising fun. Until Mr Palacio (who has the personality of a dictator troll) came out huffing and puffing and told us to “simmer down” or none of us were going to be allowed near the pool until they hold the Winter Olympics on the Sahara. Turned out that Lenora wasn’t even home. Of course.

    Zelda put all of her dinosaurs in the washing machine this morning (that’s 176, if you’re counting). She flooded the kitchen. Mom asked her why she did that. Zelda said because they were dirty. And after everything was mopped up and Mom got all the dinosaurs out, there was one sodden, mutilated thing left at the bottom of the machine. That would be
my
fan. Zelda washed my Scarlett O’Hara fan. She said she washed it because it was dirty, too. I said it was not dirty. How could it be? I’ve only had it a few days. She said it was after it fell in the toilet. So this is my life: a teenage old maid who sleeps in the pantry and can’t even call a paper fan her own. I know it could be a lot worse. But it could also be a lot better.
    Louie’s parents are going to be married forty years in August. I started working on a set of mugs for them today. I’m making them with lids because Mr Masiado always complains that if he leaves his coffee for two minutes it’s full of dog hairs, and Mrs Masiado always complains that by the time she gets to drink her coffee it’s cold. Forty years! It boggles the mind. You’d think they’d have run out of things to say to each other by now. Or that they’d get tired of looking at each other the way you get tired of having cornflakes for breakfast every day. But they haven’t and they’re not. They’re like the poster couple for True Love (even if they look more like the poster couple for Elastic Waistbands). Mr Masiado says Louie was an afterthought. As in, “After Loretta and I were happily married for 23 years we thought that what we needed was Louie to drive us nuts.” (This is the one drawback I can see to being an only child. All the responsibility for making your parents happy lands on YOU. Whereas you can make my parents happy by doing nothing. And it’s no big deal if you disappoint them, because there are three of us so they’re used to it.) Louie’s present to his folks is going to be a movie of them from their wedding day till now. (Which means there’ll be 23 years of them smiling and 17 of them looking like they’re waiting for the boiler to blow up.) August is still a way off, but it’s been in the preparation stages for months. (Just having their home movies digitized took longer than the life cycle of a tomato.) Louie’s really well organized for someone who’s so eccentric. Now he’s moving onto the production stage. He’s got a lot of new footage that he’s been secretly