The Queen Geek Social Club

by Laura Preble

  “I love you too.” He hangs up, and I feel like the tiniest dust mite on the smallest flea on the smelliest dog in the nastiest dog pound on earth. “He’ll be home tomorrow. So will I, after my date. Can you be sure you have some food for him?”

  “I’m not the one who forgets about people,” Euphoria sniffs. “Have a nice date.”

  I climb into the Jeep next to Thea, who comes out of her trance long enough to put the car in reverse and back down our driveway. “So, got everything you need?”

  “I think so.” How could I have been so selfish? I mean, Dad has been through a lot. He deserves to be happy too, right? And instead, I focus on my own stupid personal problems, and my own needs, and—

  “I’d really love to meet your father at some point,” Thea says as she pulls out onto the street. “Is he home?”

  “Uh, not right now.” I wiggle uncomfortably under the seat belt. “He’s away on business. But he’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Hmm. I’m going to an art exhibit, and I’ll be gone for the weekend. I was hoping you girls could stay at your house so I wouldn’t have to worry about you.” Worry about us? She’s never even checked on Becca when she’s been at my house! How does she know we’re not crazy, knife-wielding cannibals, or in some weird sex cult? As we drive, I wonder: Are all parents crazy? Does something happen when you donate your genetic material to a baby that robs you of brain cells? This is not something they told us about in sixth grade, when they showed the sperm and the egg. The two of them looked perfectly happy together, even if they were oddly shaped. What I say: “Sure, we can stay at my house. Dad will be back tomorrow.”

  “Oh, good,” Thea murmurs as she dodges in and out of traffic on the freeway. “I always worry about Becca whenever I leave town.”

  When we get to the Mansion (what I’ve started to call their house), Becca is on the phone in the entertainment area. Just for the record, Becca’s house doesn’t have a living room, or a den. They have this entertainment area, with a TV almost the size of one wall, two gaming consoles, a pool table, and a deluxe stereo system. “Well, I suppose if you pick us up that would be okay,” I hear her purring into the phone. “We’ll be at my house. So who’s going to drive?”

  Thea has moved on into her art studio, which we are forbidden to enter because she doesn’t want us messing up her chi, which is some sort of energy that fuels her art (or, as Becca puts it, the crap that fertilizes her mom’s imagination). Becca’s nodding into the receiver, which she tucks under her chin as she paints her toenails a deep crimson. “As long as he’s legal. Great. Six-thirty. The address is 66708 Arcadia Drive. It’s off the 52 West. Just do a MapQuest. ’Kay. See you then.” She continues to hold the phone under her chin as she finishes the last artistic strokes on one of her feet. “Ah, there,” she sighs, stretching her foot out to admire her work. “They’re picking us up tomorrow.”

  “I talked to my dad.” I ease into the chocolate-brown suede sofa. It’s like being enveloped by a giant truffle.

  “Yeah? And? Is he going to be Mr. Clarke now or what?”

  “Euphoria says the date was a disaster.” Again, I feel that little stab of guilt. I get rid of it by thinking about being enveloped in a real giant chocolate truffle. With raspberry filling. Mmmm. What a way to go.

  “Excellent!” She finishes off the toes, then sits up, fanning them out to dry them. “Isn’t that excellent?”

  “I guess.”

  Becca frowns at me, puzzled. “Okay. Well, let’s talk about tomorrow. Video airing during third period, and then our double date. I’m not all that excited about Tim, actually, but it will give me a chance to keep an eye on Anders. Swedes are notoriously romantic.”

  “He’s Norwegian, for God’s sake!”

  “It’s all Scandinavia.” She opens a cupboard that turns out to be a refrigerator. “Want a Pepsi?”

  “Diet.” She tosses me a cold one.

  “Diet? I hope you’re not trying to lose weight to be more appealing to Anders. That totally goes against our Queen Geek principles, you know.” If she knew about how I was fantasizing about being eaten by a big piece of chocolate, she probably wouldn’t worry.

  Friday morning. D-day. D for date. Dates are supposed to be fun. The problem is, this is the first one I’ve actually cared about. This automatically takes most of the fun part out of it.

  I am absolutely worthless in school. I have an English quiz and somehow tell Ms. Napoli that Lord of the Flies was written by Hans Christian Andersen. Truly awful.

  The video is set to air during third period, which for me is math with Mrs. Pettinger. Crammed into the class with the regular assortment of jocks, preps, and goth punks, I figure that airing the video will probably result in massive teasing, but it might also generate some celebrity status for me and Becca. You never really know how these things are going to play out in high school. Despite knowing better, I am ridiculously concerned about what Anders will think of it.

  The closed-circuit newscast starts with the grainy footage of our school’s panther sculptures and clips of various popular kids doing popular things, all set to distorted head-banger music. Then it goes to the anchors, usually two really short guys who can barely read, and then it finally goes to our clip. “And now, an announcement from a new club on campus.”

  The sound fades in: our wibbly-wobbly sci-fi music over a dark background. One word appears in neon pink: GEEK. Becca’s voice, cleverly altered with waxed paper and a ceiling fan, resonates: “In this school, a movement is starting. It began as an idea, but it has grown and grown” (and as she says this, the screen gets lighter, and goes to completely white) “and now, the Queen Geeks are here to save those least able to save themselves.” The music from 2001: A Space Odyssey thrums as the white screen gradually becomes the scene from Dad’s lab where Briley is sitting on her stool in glorious black and white. She mouths something, which was probably obscene, but the caption reads, “You Queen Geeks will never make me gain an ounce!” Then it shows Becca in her ’50s dress shaking a finger at Briley and brandishing a Twinkie as if it’s an Uzi. Her caption reads, “Listen, Super Model, you are no match for us. We won’t let you be a slave to beauty!”

  Then the scene shifts to us smushing Twinkies into Briley’s face. The class is roaring by this time, and although I can feel myself blush, I am extremely pleased with the reaction. More music accompanies the Twinkie-mashing scene, and then the video fades to the picture of me and Becca towering over the scene in our Doris Day dresses. A voice-over says: “The Queen Geek Social Club: making models fatter, one Twinkie at a time. Join us Wednesdays at lunch on the benches near telecom. Special meeting today at lunch!” It fades out.

  There is a heartbeat where no one says anything. Then the whole class explodes in applause. “Was that you?” a girl next to me asks. I nod, trying to remain humble.

  “Okay, okay,” Mrs. Pettinger says, trying to quiet the chaos that has erupted. “It was a very creative commercial. Shelby, anything you want to say about it?”

  Put on the spot, I’m suddenly tongue-tied and nervous, not at all the image I had concocted in my head. “Uh . . . it’s a lot of fun. We need Twinkies.”

  “Yeah, what’s the deal with the Twinkies?” a boy in the back of the room pipes up.

  “Well, we want to collect them and send them to a modeling agency. Sort of as a protest.” I finally made sense! Hurray for me!

  “A protest of what?” someone else asks.

  I turn to face the class, a sea of faces whose expressions range from amused to confused. “Models are all unrealistically skinny. We think it’s wrong to give women the idea that they have to try to be that.”

  “I don’t think it’s wrong,” a boy mutters. “Except where boobs are concerned. Those shouldn’t be skinny.”

  Mrs. Pettinger doesn’t hear him, but I do. And in a move totally unlike myself, I turn around, glare at the anonymous guy, and say, “There is more to a girl than her boobs!”

  Mrs. Pettinger
hears what I say just fine. “Excuse me?”

  Unfortunately, I cannot stop myself. “Girls have more to them than body parts. Some of you don’t get that.”

  “Yeah, there’s more than boobs, that’s for sure,” another guy mutters, low enough for us to hear but not loud enough to be identified. All the boys, and most of the girls, laugh uproariously.

  “That’s enough.” The teacher gives quizzes to each row. “Let’s focus on something a little less controversial, but more fun for me.” Everyone groans, and the temporary upset is forgotten in a storm of panic.

  I am totally unable to concentrate on my quiz. I am absolutely steamed over the remarks the guys made, and the fact that the girls laughed too! The girls! What are they thinking? Don’t they care about how women are seen? I look around and realize: nope. They just want, in this order, (1) boys and (2) more boys. The way to get them is to have boobs. And to be skinny everywhere else. I stare down at my own chest, and, oddly, feel mad at it.

  My phone vibrates. I have to be very careful about slipping it out of my pocket; Mrs. Pettinger is a cell phone Nazi, and if she sees me looking, especially during a quiz, I could be beheaded. Well, more likely given detention, but she does get pretty mad.

  It’s Becca text messaging me. “DID U C IT?”

  With one eye on Pettinger, who is writing on the board, I key her back: “Y. IM PIST!”

  Her message: “WHY?”

  Me: “TELL U LTR.”

  I get the phone back in its pocket before the teacher turns around. I try in vain to concentrate on algebra, but all I can think about is how guys are dogs and girls are stupid, except for me and Becca and a few others. Maybe Becca was right: Maybe the only way to get by is to find others of our own kind. Funny, until I met her I hadn’t even realized I had my own kind! I guess I was just as guilty of boob promotion as anyone else. In fact, I have a Wonderbra in my drawer! I vow to burn it when I get home.

  “Time.” Pettinger stands, smiling, in front of the class, waiting patiently for everyone to pass papers to the front. Time? What?! It’s only been five minutes! But no, the clock shows that it’s been almost forty. My paper is utterly blank. I desperately scrawl my name on it; it looks even more pathetic than it did blank. For a second I consider the “you-lost-my-paper” gambit, but realize I couldn’t carry it off if asked in person. I’m a crappy liar.

  When we change classes, people point at me as I walk. I feel like a movie star, minus the amazing salary and limo. Lunchtime finally arrives, and I cannot wait to get to our meeting place so I can tell Becca all about my boob revelation.

  She’s sitting there surrounded by about fifteen girls. I can’t even get to her.

  “Pull up a bench,” Elisa says as she bites into an apple. “Good response, huh? How did your class like it?”

  “They didn’t get it.” Uneasily I watch as Becca chatters with the new recruits and takes their names and e-mails down on her tidy clipboard. “I explained, and the boys thought it was dumb to expect girls to do anything other than look good.”

  “Yeah, guys are great. Right up there on the food chain with phytoplankton.” Elisa’s eyes are following Becca as she flits around the new people. “Guess we’ll have a lot of help for the campaign, huh?”

  I don’t reply. Amber sits next to me and leans so close she becomes blurry. “Notice anything?”

  “I would if I could see you.” She backs off a bit. “Oh. An eyebrow ring. Nice.”

  The skin around her eyebrow is red and puffy. A small gold circlet sticks out like the brass ring on the merry-go-round. I desperately want to pull at it and make a wish. “I had it done yesterday,” she says proudly. “Isn’t it great?”

  “Did it hurt?” Elisa comes over and squats down in front of Amber, squinting as she examines the ring. “It looks like it would hurt.”

  “Not really.” She self-consciously picks at the skin around the piercing. “Wasn’t the video thing great?”

  Becca claps her hands and everybody gathers around on the benches. Kids from other areas are watching us; last week, nobody knew or cared who we were. “Hey, everybody, thanks for coming to this special meeting. I’m Becca, and we’re really excited that you are all interested in being Queen Geeks.”

  A few people ask questions, but mostly I tune out. I feel really depressed for some reason. It’s totally stupid; I mean, our club is poised to be successful, and the ad was great, and now, finally, geeks are being seen as something other than oddities. So, what’s my problem?

  “So,” Becca says after about fifteen minutes of babble, “let’s hear from Elisa Crunch, our vice president in charge of finding a modeling agency to harass.”

  Everyone claps and Elisa stands up and does a little fake bow. “Thanks, thanks. Well, I’ve decided that, based on comparing the body-fat ratio of models to their heights, the worst offender of ridiculous thinness is the Brenda Francis Agency in Los Angeles.” Elisa flips open her ever-present Palm Pilot, hits a few keys, and continues. “The average height for female models at this agency is five feet, nine inches. The average weight is a hundred and seventeen pounds. Most normal people at that height weigh one-thirty at least. So, I vote we send them all the Twinkies we can get.”

  All the girls sitting at the benches nod approvingly. “Okay, then, I’m asking all of you to bring at least one box of Twinkies and then to hit up your advisory classes for more. We’ll also be putting up posters all over campus and making collection boxes.”

  “If you put those anywhere near the locker rooms, the Twinkies won’t be safe,” Caroline, one of the two sisters from previous meetings, says. “Football players love their Twinkies.”

  “True. Okay, we’ll figure that out.” Becca beams at the group. “Well, we just wanted to get to know you all, and to get you started on collecting Twinkies and such. We’re also going to be working with the school’s dance committee, so if you have ideas about this spring’s Caribbean Madness Spring Fling, let us know. We meet on Wednesdays, and we’re working on getting a room, so keep listening to announcements. Anybody have anything else to say?”

  A hand goes up, and Becca nods toward a girl in front. “None of us would go to the dance, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Uh . . . none of us have dates?” The girl pushes her glasses up on her nose and shyly looks to others for confirmation.

  “Well, let’s go without dates, then,” Elisa says, jumping up. “I say, why mess up a perfectly wonderful evening with guys?” Some people laugh, some scowl, some seem to be considering.

  “Let’s all get to know each other in the time we have left, and we’ll talk again next week,” Becca says. “Thanks for coming.” She starts to circulate as the meeting breaks up. I watch her as she goes from person to person, asking questions, seeming to care about the answers. And does she? She’s gone from being the new girl in school to being the head of this club; at first, it seemed like I was important to her success, but now I’m starting to feel sort of like a misfit among the misfits. So if you’re a misfit within a group of misfits, does that mean you’re actually popular and normal? I don’t feel like either at the moment.

  The Date. I suddenly remember that tonight is The Date, and as of right now, I only have six hours left to get ready. I feel my cheeks go red, and at that moment, I don’t care about philosophy or fitting in or clubs: All I care about is hugging Anders’s sandalwood sweater. I wonder if I’ll get to hug it again? Hmm. I mentally go back to the bowling alley, the hug, the feel of his chest under the sweater, the long, smoky looks he gave me, the—

  “Earth to Princess Mope.” Elisa’s annoying face is right in front of me when I open my eyes. “The Death Star wants its mood back.”

  “I wonder if you could actually have a conversation that doesn’t include Star Wars in some way.” I am angry with Elisa for messing up a perfectly good fantasy memory, and I’m also kind of annoyed at myself for being unhappy at such an obviously happy moment. But of course, I blame it all on her, and
I zero in on the one thing, with her weight, that will zing her where it hurts. “I suppose you’ll personally handle all those Twinkies, huh? Wonder if we’ll have any to send to the models?”

  I can see I’ve hurt her; she looks startled, backs up a bit, and blushes. I feel a mix of regret and glee that is really a disgusting combination. “No need to be snotty about it,” she says, subdued. “Have fun on your date tonight.”

  As she walks away, I realize that I am lower than dirt. I am lower than the cosmic dirt on the bottom of the septic tank on the Death Star. “Hey,” I call after her. She ignores me, so I run after her. “Hey, I’m sorry I said that.”

  “Really? Are you?” Her eyes are a bit moist. I made her cry! Oh, God. I’m really bad.

  “Yes, I really am. That was a really bitchy thing to say.”

  “It was.” She purses her lips angrily and walks away.

  Becca sees this exchange, and comes up next to me. “What was that about?”

  “Nothing.” The bell rings, and the newly initiated Queen Geeks say good-bye to each other and scatter, dashing off to fifth period.

  “Ready for tonight?”

  “I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

  “Well,” she smiles, and starts off toward her class. “Then it must be love.”

  We go to Becca’s house, as planned, to get ready for The Date. From the moment we reach her front door, we are in commando mode: no-nonsense, grim, and ready for anything.

  “Okay. Showers first. Then we’ll tackle hair and makeup. We only have three hours.” Becca runs up the stairway to her room, and I follow, barely touching the ground. “Do you want to go first?”

  We both scrub up, me first, her second. I take the longest shower I’ve ever taken, washing everything twice, and shaving every micron of my legs with expert precision. I suspect I used all their hot water when I hear Becca singing “R-E-S-P-E-C—OWWW! Hey! HEY!” Oops.

  “Well, that cold shower was very stimulating,” she says as she towels off. “Thanks. I won’t get any impure thoughts about Tim.”