thanks mom

Continued…
Last night after I realized it WAS Stephen sitting in my hall I locked myself in my bedroom and didn’t come out. He beat on the door and I kept thinking How did he find me and thought about crawling out the window. I didn’t and when Bella came home three hours later she explained in a very matronly tone that Stephen and she are dating. “I hope it isn’t weird for you. I was going to tell you…”

“What??!?”

It’s my mother’s fault. My mother leads this really bizarre life where twilight zone things happen to her and anyone who gets near her. Here’s what happened in June.

Stephen was in America and phoned my house to say maybe we could meet up and have a drink only I wasn’t home – my mother was. I don’t know why she told him this, or why he called in the first place, but anyway she told him I was moving to England and would be living in Manchester and he says “I’m back in The North (of England) too” and she asked him if he’d stop in and check on me when I got here because she was worried and all. Then she gave him the address of the house I had just agreed to lease and she never told me ANY of this.

So last month Stephen drops by to see if I’d got here yet and to borrow money. He met Bella who told him I wouldn’t be here for another three weeks and they sort of hit it off and now he’s gonna be sleeping down the hall from me on Wednesdays. He looks like a weasel.

I told Earl all this, by the way, and she doesn’t believe me. I told Peter and he’s furious. And that’s the only good thing about the whole situation. I think Peter is jealous – despite his hot date with The Strudel (the nickname I’ve given his ridiculously accented man-height Dutch girlfriend) tonight he’s managed to phone me up four times to bite and moan. I kinda like it.

24 August 1998