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Peter’s Square, I can’t tell her about my baseball confusion or the Brilliant Outflanking Strategy. Because sometimes she can’t always see me as me, but only me as her. And if I did tell her about the Brilliant Outflanking Strategy, she would probably write it in pink letters on a cake.
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Friday, June 28
    I would appreciate it if D.J. brought up Curtis once in a while. If you were riding with us and did not know the Schwenk family, you would not know she even has brothers. That is how little she mentions them.
    â€œBy the way, how was your weekend at Lake Superior?” I asked to make conversation.
    â€œIt was great. It was . . . great. But you know, boyfriends are hard.”
    â€œYes, they are,” I said. I did not add
Even when they’re fake they’re hard.
I was silent for that.
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Saturday, June 29
    Today Mom and I went shopping for the trip. Mom wants me to get comfortable shoes so I can walk a lot, and I want to get shoes that do not make me look eighty years old. The shoes Mom likes make me look older than Z. Z’s shoes are actually cool looking most of the time, especially for a grandmother. They are hip yoga-lady shoes.
    Mom held up one pair, and I said, “Z would never wear those.”
    â€œZ has bunions,” Mom said. Completely missing my point. “And besides, aren’t pilgrims supposed to be plain?”
    I was trying to explain that “plain” does not mean “dorky
”
when guess who walked into the shoe store at that exact moment: Emily. Of course. “Oooh,” she said, “those shoes are so you!”
    â€œSee?” Mom said. Again: completely missing the point.
    â€œSo what are you and Curtis up to tonight?” Emily asked with an expression of extraordinarily false innocence as Mom went searching for more old-lady shoes.
    â€œHe’s coming over to play chess.” This is true. We set it up yesterday.
    â€œVery exciting!” Emily leaned in closer. “What else are you going to do?”
    â€œNothing,” I said. I tried to sound icy.
    Emily smiled knowingly. “I didn’t think so . . . Oh, I’ve got to go. Bye, Mrs. Zorn. Very nice to see you.”
    It will not surprise you that Mom then said how nice Emily was and did not notice how I was mad. Then she bought a pair of shoes for me that I hate. I hope I don’t see anyone in Rome I know.
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Saturday, June 29—LATER
    Curtis just left my house. We did not have fun. I could not stop thinking about Emily and how she asked if there was anything else we were doing. That is none of her business!
It is our relationship, and we can do whatever we like.
We are not actually going out, and therefore we should not be doing anything else even if we want to.
If we did want to do something else (which we do not), we could not do it in my house because of how much trouble we got in last fall during our desiccation science-fair project when Curtis and I stayed up all night working in our basement building Plexiglas containers to display dried rats in. Mom and Dad freaked about Curtis staying over because they thought we were doing something else, and Curtis’s parents freaked too. And even though everyone now knows about the science fair, Curtis is not allowed in our basement anymore.
Speaking of science fairs, we have a calf to assemble. That is a good something else to be doing!
    So that was one reason we didn’t have fun, because I was so busy thinking those thoughts. But it was worse even than that, because it turns out that not only did Emily say that mean thing to me this afternoon, but a friend of hers also asked Curtis to the movies. He said no.
    â€œDid you want to go?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “Did you?”
    â€œThey didn’t invite me.” I could not believe I had to explain this.
    â€œYeah . . . I didn’t know what to say.”
    You could say that