Heaven Is Paved with Oreos Read Online Free PDF

know . . . Thanks for the chat.” Because by then we were home.
    Riding with D.J. Schwenk is a lot easier than I’d thought it would be.
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Thursday, June 20
    I have been supremely busy reading
Two Lady Pilgrims in Rome.
It is a book that Z mailed to me with a note saying “I hope you love this old sourpuss as much as I do!” It was written more than a hundred and fifty years ago by a lady named Miss Lillian Hesselgrave who went to Rome with a friend and visited all seven pilgrimage churches. That’s why Z went on her pilgrimage, to copy Miss Hesselgrave.
    Z is right. Miss Hesselgrave is absolutely a sourpuss. She complains about everything: indecent ladies and Roman drivers and bad Roman tea. She describes a church as being beautiful and mysterious with incense and chanting priests and pilgrims in brown cloaks, so I can 100% understand why Z would want to go there . . . but then in the next sentence she warns about the deadly night air! It is like she is saying,
You must visit Rome, but for goodness’ sake don’t go there!
I am not sure why this was one of Z’s favorite books. Perhaps there wasn’t a lot to read in Two Geese, Wisconsin.
    I will tell you what is interesting, though: trying to figure out what Miss Hesselgrave is talking about. For example, when she says Rome ladies are indecent, she doesn’t mean indecent like the way Emily dresses. She means that they show their ankles. When she complains about Roman drivers, she means horse drivers because there weren’t any cars back then. And I think that when she talks about bad night air, she means air pollution . . . although you’d think the air would be polluted during the day too—polluted from all those horses.
    I hope the Romans have fixed their air since then, because if—IF—I go, I do not want to have to worry about air pollution.
    Today I went to another baseball game and you-know-who was there. Curtis didn’t look much at her, but he didn’t look much at me, either. He focused on the game.
    I left before it ended.
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Friday, June 21
    Today D.J. asked Paul if he was going to Rome too.
    Paul looked surprised. “I’m playing this summer,” he said, like that explained everything. “The guitar.”
    â€œOh,” D.J. said. You could tell she was trying not to smile. “That’s cool.”
    â€œYeah . . .” he said, already on Planet Paul.
    So D.J. talked to me instead. She doesn’t seem to mind that I’m three years younger than she is. I appreciate that. I like that D.J. will be at Red Bend High School in the fall. It means I will know a senior who will also know me. I also appreciate that D.J. is not the kind of girl who mentions her boyfriend every two minutes like some girls I can think of (= Emily Enemy).
    D.J. had so many questions about Z that when we got to Prophetstown I invited her up to Z’s apartment, because Z’s apartment is unique and special. One entire end of Z’s living room is record albums—the big old-fashioned kind. Hundreds of them. And all over the walls are photographs of Z with bands and with other famous people, or at places like Woodstock, which was a famous music recital back in the 1960s.
    â€œWhoa,” D.J. breathed. She studied the pictures. “Do you know who these people are?”
    â€œNo, but Z does.” (
Duh, Sarah.
) “I know the albums, though. I used to study the covers for hours.”
    â€œLook at this guy! It looks like a ferret climbed onto his face and died.”
    â€œPeople used to be exceedingly good at hair,” I said.
    â€œI’ll say. Keep these dudes away from open flame . . .  Shoot, I’ve got to go. But this place is great. I wish I knew someone like this.”
    Then she left and I walked Jack Russell George and wrote in this journal and tried not to eat all of Z’s Oreos. D.J.