Things I Know About Love by Kate Le Vann Page A
Authors: Kate Le Vann
Tags: Fiction, General, Romance, Contemporary, Adult, California, Arranged marriage, loss, Custody of children, Mayors, Social workers
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Bye!”
As soon as I thought I was out of sight, I ran. I don’t know why. Running isn’t very cool in broad daylight, and outside the gallery it was intensely hot again. I just needed to run away. Sometimes you do. Anyway, I’ve been back here in this Internet shop since then, hiding out. Embarrassed. Time to update:
Things I know about love.
1. Nothing that happens between two people is guaranteed to be private.
2. People don’t always tell you the truth about how they feel. And the truth is, it may not be the same as how you feel.
3. I don’t know if you ever get over having your heart broken.
4. Strangers are called strangers because they are strange. Duh!
But thinking about the Vaughan episode, it sort of reminds me of a quote I always loved from As You Like It : “Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour, and like enough to consent.”
I am on holiday! You know, so what does it matter if I run into the odd crazy boy while I’m looking for a holiday romance? I’m here for fun. Bring it on. Only, from now on, maybe I should only consider Americans. I don’t know why there are so many English boys in Princeton anyway! Well, three. But in my experience, the English boys I’ve dated have been (in order, and including today’s art-gallery date) sad, bad, and mad.
Fancying Adam—which I do; he looked gorgeous today, all brown-skinned and twinkly-eyed and low-slung, crumply, jeansy—is allowed because he’s my brother’s friend, so not a serious option. I’ve always had crushes on my brother’s friends. When I was about eight, I remember I was obsessed with one of them, called “Conk.” Oh, Case Study…er…A-minus. I liked Conk because he was shorter than the others, sweet, and freckly. On Saturday afternoons I used to give him cookies I’d baked with my mum, which I always cut in the shape of flowers, with my little plastic flower-shaped cookie cutter. One day I found a cookie I’d given Conk earlier that day lying uneaten under a hedge. Jeff came in for a glass of orange soda, and I said he had to take out another cookie for Conk, and he said, “Why would he want another?” I said, “He must have dropped the one I gave him—it was under a hedge,” and he said, “He always throws them away. He thinks they’re horrible.” Brothers are mean like that, when you’re young. They punch you, and laugh at you, and tell you the truth. I could add another rule to my “Things I Know” list, something about the way boys lie, but even then, I realized that Conk just thought of me as a little sister who brought him yucky cookies and he hid them so as not to hurt my feelings. I’ve come to understand that my brother’s friends are often cute, but are always somehow out of my league, even when they’re not. They just don’t think of me that way. It’s nice that he’s around, though.
Text from Krystina—she wants to go shopping tomorrow.
blogplace: Inside Adam
JULY 27
YEAH, this isn’t good. I asked Livia and Jeff along to a party at my brother’s and Jeff said they couldn’t make it, Livia was jetlagged, blah blah blah, and today I saw her with this bloke, like a proper man-bloke, going into the art gallery. I don’t know if she knows him from back home or if he’s a friend of Jeff’s, but the way he was looking at her, I think it’s fairly clear that I’ve missed my chance. Which is a bit of a shame because the fact is, standing in the sun today, with that amazing hair shining—it was almost as if the sun was reflecting off her—she kind of took my breath away.
july 28
If you’re ready for another recap of the “Things I Know” list, you’ll have to wait, because I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT LOVE. I wish I could read everyone’s thoughts but keep my own private, but at the same time, have everyone know what I need them to know but without hurting their feelings and without risking my own feelings being hurt. Argh.
I ought to explain some of that.
“Okay,
As soon as I thought I was out of sight, I ran. I don’t know why. Running isn’t very cool in broad daylight, and outside the gallery it was intensely hot again. I just needed to run away. Sometimes you do. Anyway, I’ve been back here in this Internet shop since then, hiding out. Embarrassed. Time to update:
Things I know about love.
1. Nothing that happens between two people is guaranteed to be private.
2. People don’t always tell you the truth about how they feel. And the truth is, it may not be the same as how you feel.
3. I don’t know if you ever get over having your heart broken.
4. Strangers are called strangers because they are strange. Duh!
But thinking about the Vaughan episode, it sort of reminds me of a quote I always loved from As You Like It : “Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour, and like enough to consent.”
I am on holiday! You know, so what does it matter if I run into the odd crazy boy while I’m looking for a holiday romance? I’m here for fun. Bring it on. Only, from now on, maybe I should only consider Americans. I don’t know why there are so many English boys in Princeton anyway! Well, three. But in my experience, the English boys I’ve dated have been (in order, and including today’s art-gallery date) sad, bad, and mad.
Fancying Adam—which I do; he looked gorgeous today, all brown-skinned and twinkly-eyed and low-slung, crumply, jeansy—is allowed because he’s my brother’s friend, so not a serious option. I’ve always had crushes on my brother’s friends. When I was about eight, I remember I was obsessed with one of them, called “Conk.” Oh, Case Study…er…A-minus. I liked Conk because he was shorter than the others, sweet, and freckly. On Saturday afternoons I used to give him cookies I’d baked with my mum, which I always cut in the shape of flowers, with my little plastic flower-shaped cookie cutter. One day I found a cookie I’d given Conk earlier that day lying uneaten under a hedge. Jeff came in for a glass of orange soda, and I said he had to take out another cookie for Conk, and he said, “Why would he want another?” I said, “He must have dropped the one I gave him—it was under a hedge,” and he said, “He always throws them away. He thinks they’re horrible.” Brothers are mean like that, when you’re young. They punch you, and laugh at you, and tell you the truth. I could add another rule to my “Things I Know” list, something about the way boys lie, but even then, I realized that Conk just thought of me as a little sister who brought him yucky cookies and he hid them so as not to hurt my feelings. I’ve come to understand that my brother’s friends are often cute, but are always somehow out of my league, even when they’re not. They just don’t think of me that way. It’s nice that he’s around, though.
Text from Krystina—she wants to go shopping tomorrow.
blogplace: Inside Adam
JULY 27
YEAH, this isn’t good. I asked Livia and Jeff along to a party at my brother’s and Jeff said they couldn’t make it, Livia was jetlagged, blah blah blah, and today I saw her with this bloke, like a proper man-bloke, going into the art gallery. I don’t know if she knows him from back home or if he’s a friend of Jeff’s, but the way he was looking at her, I think it’s fairly clear that I’ve missed my chance. Which is a bit of a shame because the fact is, standing in the sun today, with that amazing hair shining—it was almost as if the sun was reflecting off her—she kind of took my breath away.
july 28
If you’re ready for another recap of the “Things I Know” list, you’ll have to wait, because I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT LOVE. I wish I could read everyone’s thoughts but keep my own private, but at the same time, have everyone know what I need them to know but without hurting their feelings and without risking my own feelings being hurt. Argh.
I ought to explain some of that.
“Okay,
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