Geek Abroad

by Piper Banks

  Dex sat but didn’t say anything. Instead, he stared down at his hands resting on the table. I tried to think of something to say, something flirtatious and cutting that would make him regret the way he’d blown me off. But nothing came to mind. Because what I really wanted to know was why. Why had he pretended to like me if he didn’t? Why had he gotten my hopes up? But, of course, I couldn’t ask him that, not unless I wanted to come off as even more pathetic than I already felt.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” I finally said. Which was true; I had given up on the idea of seeing him.

  “I wasn’t sure I was going to,” Dex said. Still not meeting my eyes, he lifted his lips in a humorless half smile. “I didn’t know what I was going to say to you.”

  I felt a flash of anger then, hot and stabbing.

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” I said acerbically. “I’m not going to start screaming at you or anything. Give me a little credit.”

  Dex looked up then, his eyebrows furrowed in surprise.

  “Scream at me?” he asked. “Why would you . . .”

  “Hey, Dex,” a flirty female voice said, cutting him off before he could finish what he was saying.

  Dex and I both looked up to see Avery, Hannah’s onetime best friend, standing there. I knew that she used to have a huge crush on Dex. . . . And from the way she was looking at him, in much the same way I’d seen her stare at a pair of shoes she was coveting, I had the distinct feeling that her crush was still going strong.

  Could Avery be Dex’s new girlfriend? I wondered. After all, Charlie didn’t know Avery, and so wouldn’t have recognized her if Charlie had seen her out with Dex. But surely not. Hannah would have heard if Dex and Avery were dating. And I’d gotten the definite feeling last semester that Dex didn’t care for Avery at all.

  “I called you earlier. Did your mom give you the message?” Avery now asked.

  She seemed to be pretending that I wasn’t sitting there. I didn’t really mind; every time Avery did talk to me, she just tried to coerce me into being her own personal homework slave.

  “Yeah, she did,” Dex said shortly. He didn’t apologize for not returning her call, or explain why.

  “Oh . . . well.” Avery looked discomposed for the first time. “I just wanted to see if you needed a ride here.”

  “No,” Dex said. “I got a ride with Andrew.”

  “Do you want to go get something to eat?” Avery asked, bobbing her head in the direction of the buffet. She shifted slightly, setting her shoulders back so that her large chest—scantily clad in a clingy black tank top—stuck out. I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at this blatant play for Dex’s attention.

  But Dex just shook his head. “No, thanks. Actually, Miranda and I are right in the middle of something.”

  For the first time, Avery’s hazel eyes flickered toward me. “Oh. Right. Hi, Miranda,” she said without enthusiasm.

  I smiled thinly at her. “Hi, Avery,” I said.

  “Find me later, okay, Dex?” she said. And then before he could respond, she swiveled around and strode off, her miniskirt-clad hips swaying provocatively from side to side. I wondered if I looked half as good in my slip dress.

  “Brrr,” I said, with a dramatic shiver. “If looks could freeze, I’d be an icicle right about now.”

  But Dex didn’t crack a smile at this lame joke. Instead, his pale eyes held mine, his expression serious . . . and just a little bit angry. I remembered suddenly what we’d been talking about, and my own smile faded away.

  “What did you mean by that when you said you weren’t going to scream at me?” he asked.

  I shrugged and looked down at my plate of enchiladas. I’d lost my appetite. “Just what I meant. I’m not angry. I understand . . .” My voice trailed off. That was a lie. I didn’t understand why he’d blown me off. Not really. Sure, I wasn’t as pretty and popular as the girls at the party, flitting around as they tossed their shiny hair over shoulders bared in flirty little dresses. But Dex had already known that about me. . . . Before he’d shown up at the Snowflake, before he’d told me he liked me. I took in a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and said, “Well, actually, that’s not true. I don’t understand. But I get it. Really.”

  “Miranda, what are you talking about?” Dex asked, now looking more bewildered than mad. Although the anger was still there, shadowing his eyes and causing a pink stain to rise on his cheeks.

  But I didn’t care if he was angry, because I was starting to get seriously ticked off. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he’d made me think he liked me, gotten my hopes up, and then blown me off to be with some other girl, now he was acting like I was out of line for being annoyed by it!

  “What do you think? I’m talking about how you blew me off!” I snapped.

  “Wait . . . I blew you off ?” Dex’s face was thunderous. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, I’m not kidding!” I crossed my arms and glared at him. “What else would you call it? You haven’t bothered to get in touch with me in a month!”

  “I tried!”

  “No, you didn’t!”

  “Yes,” Dex said, making a masterful effort not to shout at me, “I did. You gave me the wrong e-mail address.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said.

  “Yes, you did,” Dex said again. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a canvas navy blue wallet. He opened it up and extracted a familiar-looking scrap of yellow paper. Dex handed it to me.

  I stared down at the paper, and saw the familiar loopy handwriting in which I’d printed out my e-mail address: mirandabloom@gmail.com.

  “Right, mirandajbloom@gmail.com,” I said.

  And then something occurred to me. . . .Something that caused me to feel like cold water was trickling down my spine. Because as I squinted down at the e-mail address I’d written out for Dex, I noticed that something was missing. The letter J. My middle initial. J for Jane.

  “Oops,” I said.

  “Oops?” Dex repeated. I glanced up at him, and for a moment, I thought I could see some of the old humor glinting in his eyes. But then he was looking stern again, and I thought maybe I’d imagined it.

  “I . . . I wrote my e-mail address down wrong,” I said, and felt my cheeks flame red with embarrassment. “I left out my middle initial.”

  “I tried to e-mail you. Each time, it bounced back at me as undeliverable. And I couldn’t call, because I didn’t have your mom’s phone number in London.”

  “So . . . you did try to e-mail me?” I said, and suddenly felt a bubble of hope swell in my chest.

  Dex nodded. “About a dozen times.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said, feeling a rush of mingled relief and happiness. But then I remembered: Laughing Girl. And my elation disappeared as abruptly as it had arrived. “But . . .” I started and then stopped, staring down at the table again. I really, really didn’t want to talk about his new girlfriend with him.

  “But what?” Dex asked.

  I finally looked up at him. “Look . . . what’s the point of discussing this? I heard you’re dating someone else,” I said, trying to keep my voice as calm and free of emotion as possible. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very successful; I could feel my throat catch, sending a definite waver into my voice.

  “What? Who am I supposed to be dating?” he asked, looking puzzled.

  “You don’t know?”

  Dex let out a short laugh. “No, I don’t. Who told you I was seeing someone, anyway? Hannah?”

  “No. My friend Charlie saw you out at the movies with someone,” I said.

  Dex continued to look puzzled, his blondish-red eyebrows furrowed down again. Then comprehension suddenly cleared his face.

  “Oh! You mean Cat!” he said. And then, to my astonishment, he grinned. “That’s who she saw me with. Cat.”

  “I guess,” I said, trying—and failing—not to sound sullen. Cat. What kind of a name was Cat, anyway? “You should know.”

  “Miranda . . . Cat is my sist
er,” Dex said, and then he laughed.

  My mouth dropped open. “Your sister?”

  “Yeah. My big sister. She was home from college on break, and we were hanging out a lot. That must have been who your friend saw me with.”

  “But . . . I didn’t know you had a sister,” I said.

  “As a matter of fact, I have two,” Dex said. “Both older. Cat’s twenty. She goes to the University of Florida. And Elise is twenty-four. She lives in Boston.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling more foolish than I ever had in my life.

  “Yeah. Oh,” Dex said, and this time he grinned at me, although it seemed almost reluctant. “Is that why you never called me back?”

  “Call you back?” Now it was my turn to be confused. “Wait . . . you called me? When?”

  “I called you a few times. I left messages with some woman who answered the phone at the beach house. I think it might have been your stepmother,” Dex said. “But when you didn’t call me back . . . well, you know. I thought you were blowing me off.”

  “No!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t know you called! She didn’t give me the messages!”

  I threw a furious look in the direction of my evil stepmother. Peyton didn’t notice. She was too busy laughing her fake laugh at something a tall man with silver hair was saying.

  Dex chuckled again, this time softly. “Well. I guess that explains a lot,” he said.

  But it was taking me longer to digest this information. “So, wait . . . it was all just a misunderstanding?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I guess it was,” Dex said. And this time when he smiled at me, I smiled back at him.

  The band suddenly broke into a cool, rocker version of “Happy Birthday,” while two of the waiters wheeled out to the middle of the dance floor a huge sheet cake with white icing and the number sixteen formed by pink roses. The sixteen tall pink candles stuck on top of the cake were lit. Conversation broke off as everyone began to sing. Hannah, clutching Peyton’s hand, made her way to the cake, laughing and blushing prettily.

  I sang along, too, although I was all too conscious of Dex sitting across the table from me. Did this mean he still liked me? I thought so . . . but at the same time, I didn’t want to get my hopes up again. After a full month had gone by without our speaking, it seemed like too much to wish for that things would pick up where we’d left off.

  And there was something else, too: Henry. If Dex hadn’t been blowing me off while I was in London, and if he really had been out with his sister, and not some other girl . . . well, then, did that mean I’d cheated on him when I kissed Henry?

  “Happy birthday, dear Hannah. Happy birthday to you,” the crowd finished, and then everyone broke out in applause. Some of the girls let out loud woo-hoos.

  “Thank you, everyone. And thank you all for coming tonight,” Hannah said. She looked at Peyton. “Can I blow out the candles?”

  “Absolutely,” Peyton said, beaming at her daughter.

  Hannah leaned forward and puckered her lips. She looked so pretty in the candlelight, her perfect pale skin glowing and face softened by an excited smile. Then she blew out the candles in one go, and everyone cheered again.

  Chapter 14

  “So he didn’t ask you out?” Charlie exclaimed the following Monday at lunch.

  She and I were sitting alone at our usual table. Finn wasn’t sitting with us. Ever since his fight with Charlie, he’d been eating lunch with Tate Metcalf and Jonathan Barker on the other side of the dining room. Charlie hadn’t mentioned the fight, or Finn’s absence, and I was too preoccupied with my own problems to address it right now.

  “No,” I said. “Right after the cake came out, my dad insisted I join them for family photographs—which ticked Peyton off, since she likes to pretend that I’m not actually related to them in any way, shape, or form—and right after we were done, Dex’s ride was leaving, and he had to go. He said good-bye to me, but that was it. We left it at good-bye.”

  “That sounds like it should be a line in a movie,” Charlie said with a dramatic sigh. “We left it at good-bye. It sounds so romantic.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said, taking a bite of my turkey sandwich, “it was a little less romantic in practice. My dad was hovering nearby, worried that I was upset when Peyton tried to insist that Avery be in the family photo instead of me. Meanwhile, Dex’s friend was standing behind him, tossing his keys in the air and saying, ‘Dude, come on, we gotta go.’ It wasn’t exactly Romeo and Juliet time.”

  “That’s just as well. You know things did end badly for Romeo and Juliet,” Charlie said.

  “I guess,” I said. I had been hoping that Dex would call me the next day, Sunday, but as far as I knew, he hadn’t. Of course, it was possible that he had called while I was out walking Willow—I’d quizzed Peyton mercilessly, and made her promise to write down all of my phone messages in the future, which she finally agreed to just to get rid of me—but I had no idea if she’d keep her word. I certainly didn’t trust her. I just couldn’t figure out if she was purposely screwing with my life for her own amusement by not giving me Dex’s previous messages.

  “So, anyway, I didn’t tell you what Mitch and I did this weekend,” Charlie said.

  I swallowed back a sigh. Considering her recent behavior, it was actually pretty amazing that Charlie had held off on yet another one of her long, gushing Mitch stories for this long. They were all pretty much interchangeable—he’s such a great kisser, blah, blah, blah, do you think fifteen is too young to meet the greatest love of your life, blah, blah, blah—so I was able to zone out and focus back on my problems at hand, which included:

  1. Where I stood with Dex;

  2. Whether I could make it through the rest of the year cohabitating with Peyton (how could the Demon not have told me Dex called? How???)

  and finally, last and very much least,

  3. The Mu Alpha Theta competition coming up on Saturday against Austin Strong and the rest of the St. Pius team.

  I wasn’t worried about winning the Mu Alpha Theta competition. What I was concerned about was how out-of-control Sanjiv was getting as the date of the first competition grew closer. Despiteour agreement to have only three practices a week, Sanjiv had scheduled us for five sessions this week, insisting that St. Pius was a special situation, and we needed the extra prep work.

  “And look! He gave me these earrings for our six-week anniversary,” Charlie finished, turning her head from side to side to show off a truly hideous pair of dangling heart-shaped earrings. They were made out of fake gold, the kind that turns your ears green.

  “Oh, they’re . . .” Ugly. Tacky. The last earrings I would ever have thought Charlie would be caught dead in. “Nice,” I finished.

  Luckily, Charlie was too dreamy-eyed to notice my unenthusiastic response.

  “I know,” she said with a sigh. “I’m so lucky.”

  I stuffed my sandwich in my mouth to stop myself from making the snarky comment I so wanted to say. It wouldn’t help, for one thing. And for another, Charlie had just spent all that time listening to me talk about Dex. What kind of a friend would I be if I wasn’t equally supportive of her?

  I swallowed the bite of turkey sandwich, gulped down a sip of water, and smiled gamely.

  “Yes,” I said. “You’re very lucky.”

  I distantly heard someone saying my name, and glanced around to see who was talking to me. Then, catching sight of Felicity’s and Morgan’s gleefully malevolent faces, I realized that no one was talking to me. They were talking about me.

  Normally, I tried not to let Felicity get to me. She’s too petty and unpleasant to bother with. But between all of the stress I’d been under lately and the constant irritation of listening to Charlie nattering on about Mitch, I suddenly found it hard to rise above it all.

  “What’s your problem, Felicity?” I snapped.

  “Don’t even bother,” Charlie murmured. “She’s not worth your time.”

  “Problem?” Felicity put on an expres
sion of mock innocence. “I don’t have a problem.”

  Despite the advice she had just given me, Charlie couldn’t help snorting loudly at this.

  “Morgan and I were just wondering what it’s like to be someone’s pity date, that’s all,” Felicity said. “That must be really hard, huh, Miranda?”

  I opened my mouth, about to furiously reply, but Charlie cut me off.

  “Don’t,” she said sharply. “It just encourages her. The best thing you can do is pretend she doesn’t exist. Just picture a black hole where she’s sitting.”

  I shot Felicity and Morgan one last venomous look, but decided Charlie was right. It was better to just not engage them.

  “Have you finished Tender Is the Night?” I asked Charlie, pointedly ignoring the Felimonster and her toady.

  It worked. When they saw I wasn’t rising to the bait, they turned away, clearly disappointed that their taunts hadn’t affected me.

  The problem was . . . they had affected me. Maybe Dex and I had just had a misunderstanding, and that was what had kept us from getting together. But if that was true . . . why hadn’t Dex asked me out at Hannah’s party? I could only think of one reason why he wouldn’t: His feelings for me must have cooled.

  And that didn’t make me feel much better than if I had just been a pity date. Because either way, I still hadn’t ended up with the cute guy in the end.

  To: mirandajbloom@gmail.com

  From: hewent@britmail.net

  Subject: lost in translation

  Miranda,

  Sorry to hear that your two friends are fighting. You’re right, I wouldn’t be too chuffed to hear one of my mates nattering on about a girl like that.

  So, since you asked, “swot” means to study. And “gormless” means stupid. I’ll try to provide British-American translations for you in future e-mails! Just be glad I’m not a Cockney...you’d never understand a word I was saying, would you?

  My Top Three Favorite British Slang Words