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that I like that idea a lot.
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Sunday, June 23
    Mom and Dad said—well, they didn’t say I could go to Rome. They said it was my decision but that they were okay with my going. I heard this and I thought,
Thanks a lot, guys—I have no idea!
    But then I realized I actually did have an idea. I want to see all the things that Miss Hesselgrave talks about. I want to be smart for high school. I want to be a worldly world traveler.
    So . . .
    I AM GOING TO ROME.
    I called Z to tell her, and she said she knew all the time that I would do it.
    I think Mom and Dad like the idea of me getting smarter too.
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Sunday, June 23—LATER
    I called Curtis.
    When I wish him a good game, do I sound that bad? Because when he said “Have a good trip,” it did not sound good at all.
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Monday, June 24
    I told D.J. about my Rome decision. She did not indicate in any way that she had already heard the news from Curtis. Instead she said, “Fantastic! Send me a postcard of your favorite place. So you’ll have to visit a lot of places.”
    â€œHey,” Paul said from the back seat. “You know what? We should have a birthday party for Z when you guys get back. I can play her favorite song. She’s going to be sixty-four, you know.”
    â€œIs ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ her favorite song?” D.J. asked.
    â€œNah. But she taught me that one too.
If I am old and balding and gray in the years to come, would you like me, think of me as honey dear? Buy me biscuits? Bring me a beer?
”
    D.J. laughed. “That is not how the song goes!”
    â€œBeatles lyrics are, like, impossible to get permission to, so Z and I made up our own.
If I go out and drink with my friends, will you pace the floor? Could you adore me? Please don’t abhor me, when I’m sixty-four.
”
    I couldn’t believe it. Paul barely
says
this many words in a week—let alone singing them! His lessons must be going really well. And D.J. is psyched about her basketballing club. That means ⅔ of the people in D.J.’s car are in extremely good moods, which makes the last ⅓ person (= me) feel even worse.
    Why did Curtis have to say “Have a good trip” like that? Because even though the words were “Have a good trip,” they sounded like
I’m not happy at all.
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Tuesday, June 25
    Curtis had a game today. I asked if he wanted me to come, and he said it was up to me. He used to say he liked it when I came. So should I go or not? (Even asking the question is Emily-ish of me.) I wish there was someone I could talk to about this. Not Curtis, obviously. Not D.J.—Curtis is not a subject I could ever bring up! I can’t talk to Z.
    You would not think so, but Z is actually a difficult person to talk to about personal things. Last year when I got my period for the first time, I called to tell her, and that night she came to supper with a cake with WELCOME TO WOMANHOOD ! written on it in pink frosting letters. Sometimes Z says I will do well in life because I have excellent judgment in men (her words). But then she’ll say I must be relentlessly alert to male oppression and that I need to experience the universe unfettered.
    Last year Dad had a conference in Canada and Z went with us—that’s when we went on the water slide, and I had to get a passport (for Canada, not the water slide). On the way back we drove through Two Geese, her old town. All of a sudden Z’s happy mood changed and she wouldn’t even let Dad stop the car. She just kept staring out the window and saying, “This is a terrible place to grow up.”
    â€œZ, it’s not 1960 anymore,” Dad said. But I don’t think she heard him. She couldn’t understand that the time is different and the place is different and the people are different too.
    That’s why, even though I can talk to Z about proper Oreo technique and dancing in St.