Every Boy's Got One

Travel Diary of Jane Harris

Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine

Jane Harris

Cal Langdon is a stupid jerk.

He’s the KING of all jerks. He’s the undisputed CHAMPION of all-time jerks. How can Mark even be friends with him? Really? How?

I mean, I GUESS he can be interesting, and even witty, when he’s talking about some arcane topic such as the accordion-making industry. Which, considering that Castelfidardo is apparently the accordion making capital of the known universe, is at least kind of useful. Who knew Zio Matteo is a world renowned accordionist, and that’s why he bought a villa so close to the town that makes his chosen instrument?

There is even an accordion MUSEUM here, featuring— what else?—the world’s largest playable accordion. It’s as tall as Cal Langdon.

There’s also a statue on the village green of a large man playing the accordion. He is, oddly, in the buff. I’m not sure this would fly in America. I mean, a statue of a naked accordionist in the town square.

Still, topics unrelated to human relationships, such as Saudi Arabia’s declining oil reserves and the history of accordion-making? Those are the only subjects about which Cal Langdon ought to be allowed by law to converse. Because when it comes to people, he’s totally and completely in the dark.

No wonder his wife left him.

I honestly don’t even see how he lasted as long as he did on the foreign correspondence trail. I mean, Cal Langdon has been flying around the world—when he wasn’t apparently bouncing around it in the back of a jeep—interviewing dignitaries and world leaders and guerrillas alike.

And yet he seems to know less about people than ME, and I’ve barely left my apartment these past five years, I’ve been so busy drawing. How can someone who knows so many people know so little about them? That’s what I’d like to know.

Whatever. I’m not going to let him spoil this beautiful moment for me. We’re sitting outside the Office of the Secretary of Castelfidardo, which is where they give out the marriage license applications and schedule the town weddings. Mark and Holly are up at the desk, trying to make the clerk understand what they want. They already have all these forms they filled out back at the Italian consulate in New York. It turns out that if an American citizen wants to elope in a foreign country, they can’t just do it all willy-nilly. You have to fill out a bunch of paperwork first, back in the States. For one of the forms, Mark and Holly even had to drag four separate witnesses—unrelated to them, or to each other—to the Italian embassy to swear that they weren’t already married to anyone else (Holly and Mark, I mean).

I don’t know why this is taking so long. Or why Cal Langdon felt compelled to go up there too, and listen in. I’m keeping an eye on him to make sure he isn’t trying to sabotage the proceedings. Now the secretario himself has come out to join in the conversation.

Still, the secretario keeps going, “Non.”

This doesn’t sound good. Shouldn’t he be saying, “Si”?

Holly keeps gesturing to the paperwork from the Italian consulate and going, “But in New York they said—”

And the secretario keeps going, in his broken English, “Yessa, but, in New Yorka, thees is not how we do the engs here in Italia.”

Hmmm. Holly looks stressed. I sense trouble brewing.

Now the secretario is starting to look annoyed.

“I donna understand,” he’s saying. “Why you have to get married here in Castelfidardo? Why not Las Vegas, like normal Americans?”

Uh-oh. Holly’s mad now.

“Because we’re NOT normal Americans,” she says. “We want to get married here in Castelfidardo. We have the right forms. What’s the problem? Just open your calendar and tell us when the mayor has a time available to perform the ceremony, and we’ll be on our—”

Oh, my. Peter Schumacher just walked in. He must have followed us on his little motorino.

Poor boy. He must really not have anything else to do….

Oh, the secretario is handing something to Holly—

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HAGUE CONVENTION ABOLISHING THE REQUIREMENT OF CONSULAR LEGALISATION FOR FOREIGN PUBLIC DOCUMENTS

The United States of America and Italy and some other countries have signed a convention abolishing the requirements of diplomatic and consular acknowledgements or legalizations of public documents originating in one convention country and intended for use in another convention country signatory of the convention.

This consulate general, therefore, will not henceforth acknowledge or legalize public documents: notarial documents, deeds, certificates of vital statistics, wills, court decrees, etc.

To be valid in any other of the countries signatories of the convention, all documents must carry an APOSTILLE.

To obtain the “APOSTILLE” in any of the United States, a document is first notarized by a Notary Public in that state and then authenticated by the Country Clerk in the country in which the notary is qualified.

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