Summer of the Geek

by Piper Banks

  “What’s that?” Amelia asked,

  “It’s sort of like surfing—you’re on a board, riding the waves—but you also wear a parachute. When a burst of wind comes, it lifts you right off the water,” I said. “It’s pretty cool.”

  “Do you do it?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “No way. I’m a total klutz. I can barely stand on a regular surfboard.”

  “Can we go watch him?”

  “Sure, why not? The beach where he usually surfs is right near the pool. We’ll go see him, and then go for a swim. I’ll make some sandwiches that we can take with us. How does that sound?”

  “Great!” Amelia said, and she ran upstairs to change into her swimsuit.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Amelia and I biked over to the public beach. The boardwalk arched up over grass-covered dunes, and it wasn’t until we reached the top that we could see the ocean, vast and dark and shimmering where the sun touched upon it. It was a windy day with big waves churning toward the shore, so there were a lot of surfers out, both the regular kind and a smaller number of parasurfers. I immediately picked out Dex’s blue sail flying high above the others.

  Amelia and I sat on towels and ate the turkey sandwiches I’d packed. We watched the surfers, who were mostly teenage guys, with the exception of one or two girls and a few men my dad’s age. They took turns paddling out through the surf to wait for the best wave to ride in on. Dex and the rest of the parasurfers were a bit farther out, and they were clearly the most talented surfers out there. They jumped and flew through the air, nimbly touching down on the water before leaping back up again. Even if I hadn’t known which sail was Dex’s, I would have been able to pick out his coppery red hair, which gleamed in the bright sunlight.

  And then I saw someone else I recognized. My heart skittered for a moment before sinking like a rock. Wendy Erickson.

  Why was it that wherever Dex was, Wendy just happened to show up in the very same place? I wondered. Was it a coincidence, or by design?

  I watched her through narrowed eyes. Today, Wendy was wearing a long-sleeve surf shirt over tiny orange bikini bottoms, and her hair was tied back in a single thick braid. Surfboard in hand, she headed confidently into the water, where she jumped on and paddled through the surf until she was close enough to the parasurfers to call out to them. I couldn’t hear what she said—or what any of them might have said in response—but even at this distance, I thought I could see Dex’s teeth flash white in a smile.

  Wendy sat up, straddling her surfboard, and looked back over her shoulder. A large wave loomed behind her. She deftly jumped to her feet and leaned forward, extending her arms out to either side for balance.

  A not-very-nice part of me was silently rooting for her to be swept right off her board by the wave. I wanted to see her emerge from the ocean with bits of seaweed stuck in her hair and mascara running down her cheeks. But, disappointingly, Wendy rode the wave in looking like a pro. She reached the shore and leapt off her board, cheered on by the surfer guys, who clearly all had massive crushes on her. Wendy smiled broadly at them, and waved like a newly crowned beauty contestant.

  I glowered, bending my knees in front of me and wrapping my arms around them.

  “What’s wrong?” Amelia asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You look like you just swallowed your tongue,” Amelia observed.

  “How flattering.” I stood up and shook the sand off my towel. “Come on, let’s go to the pool.”

  “Don’t you want to wait until Dex finishes?” Amelia asked.

  I shook my head. “No, that’s okay. He probably won’t come in for ages.”

  The truth was, I didn’t want to see Dex and Wendy together again. Every time I saw the two of them in the same vicinity, I had the stomach-sickening realization of what a perfect couple they must have made. Also, I wondered if Dex knew Wendy would be at the beach today, and, if so, why he hadn’t mentioned it to me when I spoke to him the night before. Was this yet another planned meeting, so he could talk to Wendy about whatever it was he felt comfortable telling her, but not me?

  “Hi, Miranda.”

  I looked up from the towel I was folding, and saw Wendy looming over me, looking annoyingly pretty. She’d put on mirrored sunglasses, and I could see my reflection in them, looking distorted with an oddly big head.

  “Hi,” I said. Then, worrying that I sounded as unfriendly as I felt, I added, “I saw you surfing. You’re really good.”

  “Thanks,” Wendy said. “I didn’t get much of a chance to surf while I was at school. It was nice to get out on the waves again. I keep telling Dex how much he’ll miss it.”

  “Miss what?” I asked, confused.

  “Surfing,” Wendy said.

  “You mean when he goes to school?” I asked. Like me, Dex was going into his junior year of high school, so he wasn’t going to college for another two years. So why was she bringing it up now? Was it just a way to remind me that she and Dex had long, secret conversations about his future?

  She needn’t bother, I thought bitterly. It wasn’t like I was about to forget.

  Wendy nodded. “Especially if he’s in the Northeast. You can’t surf much when there’s three feet of snow out.”

  My throat felt prickly, as though I’d just swallowed a pinecone. So Dex was confiding to Wendy about where he was planning to apply to college. He and I had barely discussed it. I knew he was hoping to get a scholarship to a school with a strong lacrosse program, but it would be at least another year before recruiters started contacting him.

  “He’s got a lot of time to surf between now and then,” I said.

  “You think so now, but the summer has a way of going by quickly,” Wendy said. “I’m only going to be here for another five weeks before I have to head back. Although I’m not going directly to school. I have a few photo shoots scheduled in Manhattan before the semester starts. Speaking of which, how did Hannah’s casting call go today?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her.” Then I frowned. “Wait—how did you know she had a casting call?”

  “She told me last night. She called for some last-minute advice—what she should wear, what to expect. I used to work with her agency, before I switched to one in Manhattan,” Wendy explained.

  Typical. Just when I thought Hannah was someone I could trust, she had turned to the enemy for advice.

  “Anyway, I’m going to head back out and catch a few more waves. Are you waiting for Dex?” Wendy asked.

  “No, we’re going over to the pool,” I said. I looked down at Amelia, whom I’d forgotten until just that moment. She was standing to one side, looking up at Wendy with frank interest. “This is Amelia. Amelia, this is Wendy. She’s a . . .” I hesitated. “A friend of Dex’s.”

  “Hi, Amelia,” Wendy said, smiling broadly at the younger girl.

  “Hi,” Amelia said.

  “Do you want me to give Dex a message for you?” Wendy asked.

  “No,” I said, and then realized that—while perfectly true, the last thing I wanted was for Wendy Erickson to pass messages between Dex and me—I’d been a bit to abrupt in my refusal. “I mean, sure, just tell him we were here and I’ll talk to him later,” I said.

  “Okay, will do,” Wendy said. “Bye.”

  And with one last friendly smile and wave, she turned and headed back to her surfer friends.

  “She’s really pretty,” Amelia said admiringly. “I think she’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. Well, in real life, I mean. I suppose there are movie actresses who are prettier. But not by much.”

  I was so not enjoying this conversation. I stuck my rolled-up towel and the remains of our lunch in my backpack.

  “Come on, let’s go,” I said. I glanced back at the water once. Dex was still out there, riding his board and leaping through the air. Wendy was paddling out again on her surfboard, headed in his direction. And I was just standing on the beach, watching them, and feeling a million miles away
.

  “Are you coming?” Amelia asked.

  “Yep,” I said, turning and following her across the hot sand to the boardwalk.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “I’m home,” I called out, slamming the front door behind me.

  My voice echoed in the empty foyer. A minute later, Willow came padding out, wiggling happily when she saw me.

  “Hi, girl,” I said, patting her head. “Are you the only one home?”

  “No, I’m here, too,” Hannah said, appearing from the back hallway. “Mom and Richard had an appointment with their marriage therapist, so Mom said we should order from Mario’s when we get hungry.”

  “I’m hungry now,” I said.

  “Big surprise. You’re always hungry,” Hannah said, turning and heading toward the kitchen.

  “Didn’t they just go to see their therapist?” I asked, following her.

  “She wants them to meet with her a few times a week,” Hannah said.

  “Wow, they must be in even worse shape than we thought,” I said.

  “They left right after Mom and I got home from the casting call,” Hannah said. She moved her hand over her shoulder, as though to flip back her hair—a habit she’d had as long as I’d known her—before remembering that her hair was now too short to flick. She instead tucked a tendril behind one ear. “Aren’t you going to ask me how it went?”

  “Oh, right. I forgot. How did it go?” I asked, climbing into one of the high bar stools that were lined up by the granite- topped island.

  “I got the job!” Hannah announced. “It was amazing! It was a catalogue shoot, but for amazing, totally high-end dresses. It was at this gorgeous house, and the backyard was all done up like there was a big party going on, and I had to act like I was a mysterious woman who was gate-crashing the party. No one knew who I was, but everyone was intrigued by me. I was like a modern-day Cinderella.”

  “Wow, and you were able to act all of that out?” I was impressed. I’d thought modeling was just standing in front of the camera.

  “I hope so! I mean, I was mostly just posing, but that’s what the photographer—his name was Jojo, and he was super nice—told me I should be thinking about,” Hanna said. She hopped up onto the stool next to me and sighed happily. “It was amazing, even better than I imagined. Although it was sort of hard to hold certain poses, but Jojo told me I did a really good job and that he’d like to work with me again.”

  “That’s great,” I said.

  “I have to call Wendy and tell her,” Hannah said happily.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Speaking of which, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “About what?”

  “I can’t believe you called Wendy Erickson to ask her for advice!”

  “Who else would I ask? She’s the only working model I know,” Hannah said. “Or, knew. I met some really cool girls today. One of them told me a trick she had for losing five pounds in a hurry—”

  “You know why! She’s Dex’s ex- girlfriend!” I said, cutting her off.

  “So?”

  “So she wants to get back together with him!”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I can just tell. She oozes all over him every time they’re together,” I said.

  Hannah sighed. “Miranda, Dex is with you. You have to trust him.”

  “I do trust him! She’s the one I don’t trust,” I said.

  “Wendy’s actually really nice. Plus, she has a boyfriend at school. They’re really serious,” Hannah said.

  This stunned me into momentary silence.

  “Really? How do you know that?” I finally asked.

  “Duh.” Hannah rolled her eyes in a most annoying way. “She told me.”

  “What did she say exactly?”

  “Hmmmm.” Hannah reached behind her to grasp her hair into a stubby ponytail while she considered my question. “Her boyfriend’s starting college in the fall. She said that he’s going to Oberlin, but they’re going to try to figure out how to do the whole long-distance relationship thing. She also said he’s gorgeous and brilliant, and that they’re madly in love.”

  “She said that? That she was in love with this other guy?”

  Hannah nodded. “Mm-hmm. I’m telling you, you have nothing to worry about. She’s not after Dex, and besides, Dex likes you. He’s way more into you than he ever was with Wendy.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Definitely. Tiff and Britt were just telling me how smitten he seemed at that cookout you all had at the beach. Don’t you just love that word? Smitten.”

  “They said that? Really?” I asked. A warm, rosy glow spread through me.

  “Yep,” Hannah said.

  “Oh. Well, okay, then. I guess you can call her,” I said, with only a trace of reluctance.

  Hannah laughed. “You’re giving me permission?” she teased.

  I smiled. “No, but I will give you my blessing. Let’s order dinner.”

  But before I could find the take-out menu for Mario’s, the doorbell rang.

  “Can you get that?” Hannah asked. “It’s probably Emmett. He said he might stop by after work.”

  She headed off to the bathroom—probably to touch up her lip gloss—and I went to answer the door. But it wasn’t Emmett.

  “Hi,” Charlie croaked. Framed in the doorway, she looked absolutely wretched. Her face was pale and blotchy, and tears streamed down her cheeks. “Can I come in?”

  I called back to Hannah, letting her know it wasn’t Emmett, and then led Charlie to my bedroom. Willow followed us, looking worried and thrusting her long nose into Charlie’s hand in an offer of canine comfort.

  As soon as we were in my room with the door shut behind us, I turned to Charlie.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?” I asked anxiously. Although Charlie had a manic-depressive disorder, she rarely ever cried, even during her depressive periods. Normally, she just got really quiet and tired and spent a lot of time in bed. Seeing her like this, in floods of tears, was alarming.

  Charlie sat heavily on the edge of my bed and covered her face with her hands. I sat down next to her, feeling almost numb with worry.

  “Are you hurt? Do you need me to call your parents?” I asked.

  Charlie looked up, wiping at her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “What? No. I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, obviously, but I’m not hurt.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  Charlie looked down, staring at her feet. “I feel stupid telling you.”

  “You can tell me anything,” I protested.

  “I don’t know if I can tell you this.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  We sat there quietly, side by side. I wasn’t sure how I could help if Charlie didn’t want to tell me what was wrong. But I thought that if she really hadn’t wanted to talk to me about it, she wouldn’t have shown up on my doorstep in tears. The best thing to do was just wait her out.

  Finally, Charlie took in a deep breath, slowing the ragged gulps of air she had been taking. “Here’s the thing . . . I think I might . . .” She stopped and shrugged. “It feels weird to say out loud.”

  “Do you want to write it down?” I asked, thinking back on my advice to Amelia that morning.

  Charlie gave me a withering stare, looking much more like her old self. “Don’t patronize me,” she said in an acid tone.

  “There’s the Charlie I know and love,” I said. I nudged her. “Just tell me.”

  “I think . . . the thing is . . . I think I have feelings for Finn,” Charlie said. She started off slowly at first, but then the words suddenly came out in such a rush, it took me a few beats to process what she’d said.

  Charlie had feelings for Finn? It wasn’t like I hadn’t suspected it. But I’d never, not in a million years, ever thought Charlie would admit to it.

  “Say something!” Charlie cried.

  “I think . . . wow. I mean . . . that’s just . . . wow,” I said.

  Charl
ie looked at me. “Wow?” she repeated. “All you can say is wow?”

  “Give me a minute. I have to adjust to the news that one of my two best friends is in love with the other one,” I said.

  “Love? I didn’t say love,” Charlie said quickly. “I said, have feelings . Have feelings is not the same thing as love. It’s an entirely different state of being.” But despite her words, Charlie simultaneously blushed the color of a ripe tomato and shifted uneasily in her seat.

  I couldn’t help grinning. “You’ve got it bad, huh?” I said. “Are you going to help me or what?” Charlie growled.

  There was a knock on my door. “Come in,” I called out.

  Hannah opened the door. “Hey, are you ready to call in our dinner order?” she asked, poking her head in. She saw Charlie and smiled a little shyly. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” Charlie said, still sniffling a bit.

  “Hannah, this is my friend Charlie.”

  “I know, we’ve met before,” Hannah said. She looked more closely at Charlie, taking in her tear- streaked face. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?”

  Charlie nodded. “Guy problems,” she said.

  “What happened?” Hannah asked.

  “There’s just this guy . . . he’s a good friend of mine. Of ours,” Charlie said, flicking a glance at me.

  Hannah, taking this explanation as an invitation to join the conversation, walked in and curled up on the opposite end of the bed, cuddling my pillow in her arms. “Go on,” she said, nodding. “Tell me everything. I’m really good at solving relationship problems. Just ask Miranda.”

  I nodded. “She does have a knack for it,” I said.

  “There’s nothing much to tell. I have feelings for this guy,” Charlie said awkwardly. She looked sharply at me to quell any comments I might make. “I’m not in love with him, I just . . . well, I guess I realized I like him more than I previously thought I did.”

  “And he doesn’t feel the same way about you?” Hannah sympathized.

  “No. He doesn’t,” Charlie said sadly.

  “I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” I chipped in. “I think Finn might have feelings for you, too.”