Geek Girl (14 page)

“Maybe,” I say, not really wanting to discuss Trevor with her.

“He’s actually kind of cute, don’t you think?”

My camping tent conversation with the cheerleader pops into my head. This is sounding like a repeat.

“I guess,” I shrug.

“You haven’t hooked up with him, have you?” Her question, instead of horrified as it would have been a couple of months ago, comes out sounding hopeful. I don’t want to play this game again, not with her.

“Not yet,” I say and grin provocatively.

“Thinking about it then?” She’s disappointed.

“Maybe,” I say, knowing that will keep her away from him at least for a little while.

“Well, I guess there’s always next year after you’re gone.” She laughs, and I smile through clenched teeth. She gets up as Trevor walks back outside, and as she passes him, she drags a hand across his chest.

“See ya later, Trev,” she purrs.

“It’s Trevor,” he says, and my heart skips a little at his correction.

“Whatever,” she says with an alluring smile.

Trevor sits next to me, stiff with tension. He looks at Beth and Adama, who are still going at it, and lets out a soft sigh that is full of distaste.

“Having fun?” I tease.

He gives me a slight smile.

“I’m sorry, Jen. I’m trying to. This just isn’t my thing, you know?”

“Yeah, I do know.”

He grabs my hand and threads his fingers through mine. I let him even though it sort of undoes the whole secrecy thing. I figure he needs it. Maybe I do also, a little.

“Guess this must be how you feel when we’re with my friends, huh?”

“They’re not so bad. I’m kinda getting used to them.”

“Used to them,” he repeats softly. He looks at me, eyes sad. “Guess this goes back to that odd couple thing, huh? There doesn’t seem to be anywhere we’re both comfortable.”

“There are lots of places we’re both comfortable,” I argue. “We just have really different friends.”

“And interests,” he adds, looking back through the doorway into the house.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say.

“No, it’s okay. These are your friends, and if you can get used to mine, I can get used to yours.” His words are brave but laced with doubt.

“I
want
to go.” I squeeze his hand, and he looks at me to see if I’m telling the truth or just trying to let him off the hook. Trevor doesn’t belong here, not yet. I suddenly, urgently, want to get him out of here.

“You sure?”

“Yes, let’s go.” I lead him around the side of the house, not even stopping to tell Beth we’re leaving.

“Don’t you want to go in and say good-bye?”

I smile at him. Only a truly polite geek would think these kinds of kids would care about the niceties of society.

“No, I really don’t.”

We’re around the side of the house, where vines drape both against the house and all along the fence above precisely trimmed bushes. The plants have the effect of silencing the din, giving the side yard the feeling of a private refuge. Trevor stops suddenly and pulls me into his arms, kissing me until my head is spinning.

“Thank you,” he says, leaning back. “I know you’re leaving just for me.”

I pull him back in, and he capitulates easily, kissing me again.

“Thank
you
,” I say, as he straightens up, “for coming with me in the first place.”

He leans toward me again.

“It’s okay,” he says, grinning. “It’s turning out to be pretty fun after all.”

I didn’t know it was possible to kiss while smiling, but I’m finding out it is.

My phone buzzes at six in the morning, and I don’t even bother to open my eyes to see who it is calling me so early.

“Yeah?” I grumble into the phone.

“So, thought you said you hadn’t hooked up with him?”

“What?” I feel like I’ve stepped into the middle of a conversation. “Is that you, Ella?” I pull my alarm clock closer, squinting at it, as if that will change the time it reads. “Why are you up so early?”

“I’m not
up
. I haven’t been to bed yet.”

I think about how many times I had come home at about this same time in the past. I groan into the phone.

“Well, I have been. You woke me up.”

“Sorry,” she says, sounding anything but. “You told me you hadn’t hooked up with your little pet yet. But that’s not what I saw.”

Her words bring me sharply awake, and I sit up.

“What are you talking about, Ella? It’s too early for riddles.”

“You and Trevor. I saw you last night. I was looking for you, and Ben told me you had left, leaving from the side yard, so I went to see if I could catch you. I saw you and Trevor there, going pretty hot and heavy.”

She sounds angry, and I rub my face, trying to read into her deep silence.

“Well, El, you know how guys are,” I stumble, trying to find footing in this strange conversation. “Sometimes you’ve gotta convince them in other ways.”

“You haven’t been with him that way before?” She still sounds put-out.

“No,” I lie. “I mean, you gave me the idea last night.”

“I did?” Now she sounds upset with herself, which is better.

“Yeah, I mean . . . he was a little upset by the party. Put yourself in his shoes. He’s never been exposed to anything like that before.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“So if I don’t want him to run away, tail tucked between his legs, I have to do something to keep him coming back, right?” I wince at talking about Trevor like this with Ella.

She laughs. “You know, Jen, you’re a lot more devious than I suspected.” I cringe at her assessment, mostly because it’s true. “Well, keep it up, girl. I’m going to hit the sack. See you next Saturday?”

“We’ll see,” I say, hanging up. I lie back, but there won’t be any more sleep for me now. Her words keep running through my head, and I sit straight up again. Somewhere in my game, I have come to respect Trevor, respect who he is and even his geeky values—my objective is to strip that respectability away from him, to make him more like me.

I should let him go,
I think. He’s not too far gone. I can stop now—step out of his life. That would be easy for me. A new foster family will most likely mean a new school, and he can move on, forget about me. I’m sure mousy Mary Ellen will be glad to once again be the object of his affection. My stomach clenches at the thought of Trevor with her.

Even as I think of it, I know I’m too selfish to really follow through. I’ve been considering staying with the Grants, at least until I graduate at the end of next year. If I’m being honest, I have to admit I like them a little.

Then there’s Trevor. I know there isn’t any possibility of anything real between us, but I’ve had more fun with him over the past several months than at any other time in my life. I drop my head into my hands, scrubbing my face as if it will help solve this dilemma. I get up and walk over to the mirror, and I notice a third picture of Trevor and me stuck below the first. Where did that come from?

I pull the picture down and look at it. We’re sitting on his trampoline, and I’m laughing into the camera, looking not at all like me, while Trevor’s eyes are on me, lashes shadowing his eyes, dimples in evidence. I haven’t seen this picture before, but I remember this day. Todd took it with his new camera, which explains why we’re off-center and angled toward the corner of the photo. I press it against my chest.

There’s one way for us to be together,
I think. I can’t ever be good enough for him, not the way he is now.

If I accomplish my original objective, though, if I bring him down, then he’ll be on my level. Then Mary Ellen won’t want him.
Then
we can truly be together.

⊕⊗⊕

I can hear Trevor in the backyard, cheering. I walk around with a smile and watch as Todd, jumping on the trampoline, drops to his bottom, bouncing a few times before climbing back up onto his feet. Trevor cheers as if he’s done an amazing trick and leans over the edge to give Todd a high five. Todd is grinning ear to ear at his little brother. Then he catches sight of me over Trevor’s shoulder and yells.

“Jen-Jen!” He always says my name twice.

“Hey, Todder,” I call back, and he laughs at my name for him. He scrambles down to run over and give me a hug. I watch all of this from my peripheral vision since my eyes are on Trevor, who turned as soon as Todd called my name. He’s smiling at me and doesn’t look mad or disgusted with me like I thought he might.

“Todd!” Carol calls from the doorway. “Come on in now and get something to drink and get some sunscreen on.” Todd easily dehydrates and burns in the sun and heat.

“Hi, Jen. How are you today?” she asks me. Ever since my foster mom defended my name, she has called me Jen, which is uncomfortably personal. I almost wish she would go back to calling me Jennifer.

I walk up to Trevor as Todd and Carol disappear into the house, holding a DVD in front of me like a shield.

“Klaatu comes in peace,” I monotone.

“Is that—?”

“The 1951 version? Yep.” I wobble the DVD from side to side. “I wouldn’t bring you the—let’s see, what did you call it?—the ‘uninspired drivel that is the remake’? Did I get that right?”

“It wasn’t all
that
bad, I guess. At least not when I watched it on DVD.” He waggles his eyebrows at me in comic suggestion, and I laugh, remembering. When we watched it on DVD so that I could appreciate, as Trevor explained, the differences between the two versions, I seem to recall spending a good portion of the remake lip-locked with a certain sci-fi geek.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?” I ask, smiling at him hesitantly.

“Do you need to be?” he asks.

“Well, you haven’t called since Saturday night, so I thought maybe . . .”

“Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Todd was having an off day yesterday. By the time we were done with that, it was pretty late.”

Todd sometimes has what Trevor and his parents refer to as “off days” when he spends the day with behavior issues ranging from crying to throwing tantrums to refusing to get out of bed.

“So you’re not mad? You know, about the party.”

Trevor walks over to me and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me close.

“Why would I be mad? They’re your friends, and if that’s what you like to do, then . . .” He leans over and kisses me quickly. “I’m not interested in trying to change you, Jen. I like you just the way you are.”

Guilt slices through me.

Mistaking the look that crosses my face, he asks, “Do you
want
me to be mad at you?”

I shrug and look away so he can’t read the shame in my eyes.

“Might be kind of fun to make up,” I say off-handedly.

He laughs at that.

“Okay, I’m really mad at you then.” I look up into his guileless green eyes and sigh, giving myself over to his contagious calm.

“I’ll let you forgive me if you kiss me again,” I tease.

The dimples come out, and he sighs melodramatically, looking skyward as he pulls me closer with a smile.

“Man, the things I have to do . . .”

Then he’s kissing me again—maybe not quite as sweetly as before but still by far nicer than anything I’ve experienced.

⊕⊗⊕

“Do you want to call the guys over to watch the movie tonight?” I ask.

My guilt is still driving my actions. We are standing by the tramp, and Trevor is reading the back blurb on the DVD case, as if he hasn’t rented and watched it a million times.

“It’s Monday, remember?”

Trevor has a mysterious Monday commitment every week and refuses to tell me what it is. In the beginning, it was a problem because my previous experience with secrets withheld by boyfriends usually ended up in my being hurt. But now I know that whatever it is, it’s completely innocent, because that’s how Trevor works.

“Oh yeah. I forgot how much I hated Mondays.”

“When does it have to be back? We could do it tomorrow night.”

“It doesn’t have to be back. I bought it for you.”

“You did?” He smiles like a kid on Christmas who got a Red Ryder, then gives me a thank-you kiss, which is worth
at least
ten DVDs.

“I knew you loved me,” he says teasingly, then turns and jumps up on the tramp before I can say anything. He does an effortless back flip.

“Show-off,” I mutter, and he laughs.

“Come try it,” he says, pulling me up on the trampoline, setting the DVD on the padding along the edge.

“No way. I’ll probably land on my head and break my neck.”

“No you won’t. I won’t let you. I’ll spot you.”

Because I’m still riddled with guilt, I agree.

“Just get jumping really high, nice and smooth,” he coaches. “When you’re ready, just push backward, arms overhead, and I’ll help you.”

“Okay, but if I die, it’s on your head,” I grumble.

Trevor just laughs. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. On my upward jump, I lean back, feeling his hands on my back and my belly, pushing my feet overhead, and then suddenly I’m landing on my feet. My eyes fly open in surprise, and I laugh. Trevor just grins at me.