Geek Charming (19 page)

He took a squirt and closed his eyes. “Much better,” he said as he grabbed the camera from the bed.

“But you don’t understand—I’m
dying
! You
have
to tell me who it is!” I moved the camera away from his face. “And stop hiding behind that thing.”

“I’m not hiding,” he replied, his head shrunk down into his shoulders like a turtle. He put the camera down and flopped down face-first on his bed. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” he moaned into his pillow.

“What? I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m fantastic at keeping secrets. For instance, I never told
anyone
about the fact that Lola made out with Ted Fenton at Cynthia Greenburg’s Sweet Sixteen last year even though she was technically still going out with Richie Marino at the time.”

He lifted his head off the pillow and looked at me. “Okay, well, you just told
me,
” he replied.

“Whatever. I know I can trust you. So who is it?” I couldn’t believe that all the time Josh and I had been hanging out, he hadn’t mentioned he had a crush. Frankly, I felt a little betrayed. Friends don’t let friends not know about their crushes.

“I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” he said as he grabbed a little rubber E.T. figurine off his night table.

“But I can
help
you,” I said. “You know, give you advice and stuff.” I pointed to E.T. “And the first piece of advice is that you might want to put all that stuff away if you ever have a girl over. Not so sexy, you know?” I definitely had my work cut out for me when it came to mainstreaming him into regular society.

“It’d just be a waste of time.” He sighed, placing it in a drawer. “Someone like her would never like someone like me.”

“You don’t know that. Like your mom said, you’re kind of a catch—you know, in a mathlete kind of way. And I’m going to help you become an even
bigger
catch,” I said. “Okay, even if you’re not willing to tell me who she is yet, you’ve got to at least give me some clues. You said I know her . . . is she one of my good friends? Omigod—is it
Lola
? Do you have a crush on
Lola
?!”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “No. It’s not Lola.”

I marched over to his closet and flung open the door so I could see exactly what I was dealing with when it came to wardrobe. From the few pairs of jeans, three white oxford shirts, and a suit jacket, it turned out not much. “Good because she’s completely obsessed with this guy John Guzman who goes to Buckley, which I
so
don’t understand. I mean, who wants to go out with someone who calls himself the Guz? I can’t even imagine what he’s going to end up wearing to Fall Fling.” I turned to look at him. “Wait—is it Hannah?!”

He rolled his eyes. “No
.
It’s not Hannah.”

“I’m glad because even though she doesn’t want anyone to know yet, Joe Yudin just broke up with Deb Eiseman and asked her to Fall Fling.”

He shook his head. “And now I know.”

I walked back to the bed and sat down next to him.

He turned his face to the side. “I don’t think you’re friends with her,” he said into the pillow. “In fact, I
know
you’re not friends with her.”

“Okay, this is so making me crazy. At least tell me if she’s blonde or brunette.”

He flipped over on his back and stared at the ceiling, a faraway look in his eyes. “A really deep, rich chestnut color, like Faye Dunaway in
Network
.”

“Who?” I said.

“Never mind.” He sighed.

“How tall is she?” I demanded.

“I don’t want to play this game anymore,” he said, walking over to the fish tank in the corner of the room.

“I thought you didn’t like animals,” I said.

“I never said I didn’t like them. I said I had issues with them because of the incident,” he explained as he sprinkled some food into the tank. “Besides, it’s just mammals I have problems with. These are fish.”

I shook my head. This was going to be more work than I thought. “Okay, um, Josh? Rule number 422: whatever you do, don’t spend your first date with your crush giving her a biology lesson. Or whatever class it is where we learn about mammals. What’s their names?

He looked up. “Orson Welles and François Truffaut.”

“Who are Orson Welles and François Truffaut?”

He sighed. “Only two of the most important directors of the twentieth century,” he replied.

“Okay, whatever, back to your crush.” I picked up my Sidekick. “So she’s brunette and I’m
not
friends with her,” I said as I scrolled through the address book. The good news was that because we lived in L.A., there were double the amount of blondes than brunettes, so it wouldn’t be so difficult to figure this out. “Oh! I know—Karina Morgan.”

He turned to me. “Karina Morgan has been to rehab twice in the last year—why would you think I’d have a crush on
her
?”

“Before she became a pillhead she was a
very
nice girl.” I continued scrolling through the list. “I know—Stacy Eisenhauser.”

He gave me the same look I gave my dad when he had asked me whether I wanted to go to the Neil Diamond concert at the Staples Center with him last year. “Not only does Stacy Eisenhauser look like Rosie O’Donnell, but she came out last year and is dating Jordanna Olson,” he said.

“Well, you
did
mention you had a habit of falling for lesbians, so it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility,” I shot back.

“I can’t believe you have her number programmed in your phone.”

“That’s because she helps me with my trig homework sometimes. I think she might have a crush on me.” I went back to scrolling. “Hmm . . . is it—”

“Okay, game over,” he announced, walking toward the door. “I have a calculus quiz tomorrow, so I should really start studying.”

“That’s
so
not fair,” I whined. “You have to tell me.”

“Some other time. I promise,” he said as he led me out of the room.

I said good-bye to Sandy, who was curled up on the couch wiping away tears as she watched a show about lost pets on Animal Planet, and promised her I’d come back for dinner after she finished her Introduction to Persian Cooking class.

“Thanks for having me over,” I said to Josh as he walked me out to my car. “And for this,” I said, holding up
Manhattan
.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Just don’t throw it around in that bag of yours so it gets scratched or anything. It’s the Millennium edition, so it was pricey.”

“I won’t,” I promised as I got into the car and rolled down the window. “You’re not going to tell me who she is, are you?”

“Not tonight,” he replied.

“I didn’t think so.” I sighed. “Tomorrow?”

“Probably not.”

I sighed again. “Fine. Be that way. Good night.”

“Good night,” he replied.

After I rolled up the window, he knocked on it.

“Hey, Dylan?” he said after I rolled it down.

“Yeah?”

He looked at the ground. “Never mind,” he said. “Forget it.”

“No. Tell me.”

It was dark but I could tell he was blushing. “I was just going to say . . . I know you’re only doing this because your dad’s making you, but . . . it’s been fun hanging out with you. Even though you obviously think I have horrible taste in girls.”

“Hey, if you like hanging out with me, you have
excellent
taste in girls,” I teased. “But seriously—I’ve been having a good time, too. Like I said, I’ve realized you’re actually not that geeky. I mean, obviously there’s room for improvement—like getting you off the inhaler—but you’re definitely not as bad as I originally thought.”

“Thanks. I guess,” he replied.

“Good night,” I said, rolling up the window.

He knocked on it again.

“Yes, Josh?” I said, after I rolled it back down.

“Maybe you’re right about the inhaler,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s a little bit of a nervous habit. I’m going to try and use it less often.”

“Sounds good,” I agreed.

“Well, good night,” he said.

“Good night,” I said.

As I drove away, I thought about how weird guys were. I mean, what was the
point
of having a crush if you didn’t tell someone who you were crushing on?

chapter eight:
josh

I really did mean it when I told Dylan that I liked hanging out with her. Sure, she had this way of thinking that the entire world revolved around her, but she had a good heart. Not only that, but she was willing to use the limited skills that she
did
have to help out her close friends. Of which, I discovered the following week, I had become one.

It was Sunday afternoon and I was reading the latest issue of
Fade In
magazine that I had stuck in
PC World
while Raymond explained to a woman who looked like an extra in
Night of the Living Dead
because she had triplets hanging off her that, yes, the Play-Doh that her toddler had stuck in the CD-ROM drive of her laptop might explain why it wasn’t working, when I got a text from Dylan.

What time do you get off
?

Fifteen minutes
, I typed back.

I had spent enough time with her by this point to know that saying no wasn’t an option when shopping was involved, even though, for the life of me, I had no idea what she could have wanted. She had finally stopped sighing audibly whenever she took in my standard uniform of T-shirt and jeans, but I highly doubted she was going to ask me for fashion advice.

 

“What’s up?” I asked when I found her in the guys’ department of Abercrombie with an armful of T-shirts and cargo pants. “I thought you were going to that tribal belly-dancing class with Lola at the gym?”

She held up a red T-shirt to my chest. “Nope. I decided it was time for me to get started on my new hobby.”

My right eyebrow shot up. “What’s your new hobby?”

“Makeovers for the less fortunate,” she replied.

I tried to avoid looking at the pierced belly button of the Cameron Diaz look-alike salesgirl who was folding sweaters ten feet in front of us, but since almost her entire stomach was bare, it was hard. Amy Loubalu would never dress so cheesily. “So who are we making over here?” I asked.

“You, silly.” She smiled.

Uh-oh.

“Where’s your camera?” she asked.

“It’s at home. I didn’t think we were shooting today.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed. “That’s too bad. This would’ve been great for the documentary. You could’ve done a whole, what’s it called,
montage
sequence. I
love
makeover montages—they’re so much fun.”

She held a blue T-shirt up to me. “Even though you still refuse to tell me who you have a crush on, I figured I’d still help you out,” she explained.

I gave her a doubtful look.

“Believe me, I’ve worked on cases that were a lot tougher than you. You know Robert Hughes?”

Of course I knew Robert Hughes. Everyone knew Robert Hughes. He was second-in-command in the Popularity Police after Asher.

“Do you remember what he looked like when he was still going by ‘Bobby’ back in freshman year?”

In my mind I flipped back the pages of my virtual Castle Heights yearbook. “And people call
me
a geek?”

“Exactly.”

“You were responsible for that?”

She nodded proudly. “Yup.”

“Wow. I have to admit—that’s pretty impressive.”

“And I’m going to do the same for you,
mi amigo
,” she said as she pushed me toward the dressing room.

 

“Okay, so she’s not a cheerleader,” I heard Dylan yell from outside the dressing room as I checked myself out in the three-way mirror in a pair of black cargo pants and a green T-shirt that said PHYS EDU. I didn’t think Dylan was aware of the irony of that because, well, Dylan wasn’t exactly an ironic kind of gal, but since I had a computer file of various gym excuses that I had been rotating since eighth grade, I thought it was pretty funny.

“Nope. Not a cheerleader,” I yelled back. I couldn’t decide if I looked cool, or like I should be valet-parking cars at one of those hotels that was so hip it didn’t even have a sign.

“And she’s not on any sports teams, or on the Student Council?” she announced.

Ever since I had made the stupid mistake of telling Dylan there was someone I had a crush on, she had refused to drop the subject. I had to admit that her tenacity was pretty impressive. If she had put half of that energy toward her physics homework (which, over the last few weeks, I had found myself doing most of), MIT would be banging down her door with a full scholarship.

“Nope. No sports teams or Student Council,” I replied as I opened the door and walked out. Since barely anyone at Castle Heights other than me and Amy worked after school, I knew I was coming dangerously close to revealing her identity, but our twenty-questions game had turned into seventy-five questions, and like a captured soldier undergoing Chinese water torture, I was almost ready to crack.

As I stood there like a contestant on one of those reality shows about models, Dylan walked around, examining me from various angles.

I started scratching at my arm. “I think I’m allergic to this material,” I announced.

“It’s
cotton
,” she replied. “Just like your other T-shirts. It’s just nicer cotton. Okay, now walk over to that mannequin wearing the tank top and miniskirt and back,” she ordered.

I started to walk.

“
No
—the one wearing a
tank
top. That’s a
tube
top.”

I changed course and did as I was told.

“Those pants are very slimming on you,” she finally said.

She sounded like my mom. At least she didn’t call them slacks.

As I stood in front of her she examined me from every angle. “It’s official,” she announced.