Geek Magnet

by Kieran Scott

  “I am always in a guy capacity,” Robbie joked.

  “Ha ha. But no. You’re here . . . we’re here to talk about Tama. And the seeds,” I said. I shoved all my clothes off my desk chair and onto the floor and sat down.

  “Right. The seeds.” Robbie inspected my anger painting, his back to me. I was glad I couldn’t see his face. He was probably wondering where I was hiding the chicken heads and hacksaws.

  “So, here’s what I learned about Tama Saturday night,” I said, soldiering forward. “She likes salty snacks, not sweet.”

  “Okay. Got it. Good to know.”

  He moved on to my books and CD collection. Pulled something out, inspected it, put it back. He strolled along the shelves slowly, as if he were reading each and every title.

  “She absolutely hates it when guys check themselves out and fix their hair and stuff,” I continued. “Which is weird because Leo’s pretty vain, I think.”

  “Right, but he probably doesn’t admire himself in public. Too ‘cool’ for that,” Robbie said, adding air quotes.

  He scoffed at something on my shelves. Shook his head. Moved on to the paintings over my bed. I watched him closely. What had he scoffed at? Could you really come into someone else’s room and mock their stuff ? I hoped he didn’t mock my work. That I could not handle.

  “Anything else?” he asked, walking around my bed so he could see the paintings on the other side. He passed right by my knee, but didn’t look at me. What was he thinking right now?

  “Oh! Yeah. She likes guys in turtlenecks,” I said.

  “Turtlenecks?” His eyes finally met mine.

  “Yeah. Turtlenecks.”

  He frowned and touched his neck. “I hate turtlenecks. They chafe.”

  “No they don’t,” I said. I was wearing one at that very moment.

  “I don’t even own a turtleneck.”

  I shrugged. “Sorry. Just reporting what I know.”

  He nodded and returned his attention to the paintings. “You did all these?”

  “Yeah.” I held my breath.

  “They’re cool.”

  I blushed. “Thanks.”

  “But your music collection needs serious help.”

  My heart dropped. “What?”

  “This is pathetic,” Robbie said, striding back to my media wall. “What are you going for here? Unoriginality?” He gestured at my magazines. “Do you just buy whatever Entertainment Weekly tells you to?”

  Yes.

  “No,” I said defensively. “And I like my music.”

  “You don’t like this stuff. Trust me. You just don’t know any better.”

  “Thanks a lot.” My face flushed with embarrassment.

  Robbie’s face fell. “Sorry. I just . . . sorry. I guess I’m kind of a music snob.”

  “You guess?”

  He came around my bed and sat on the edge to face me. “I’ll burn you some stuff, if you want me to,” he offered. “You like metal, obviously. Classic rock. No emo, thank God. At least you’ve got that going for you.”

  “You don’t have to burn me anything,” I said, humiliated. “I have a Best Buy gift certificate from Christmas. I can use that.”

  “You still have a gift card from Christmas? I would have scorched that sucker the next day. We are so going shopping.”

  The embarrassed heat that had overtaken me ebbed a bit. “We are?”

  “We are. Soon,” he replied.

  The phone rang and I grabbed it off my desk without checking the caller ID. Steph pretty much always called after dinner.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi . . . Can I speak to KJ?”

  My heart stopped beating, then gave an overly huge thump. This could not be what I thought it was. It was a telemarketer or something. Robbie got up again to take a look at my Happy Meal toy collection from my youth, which I had yet to bring myself to toss. I spun the chair toward my desk, away from him.

  “This . . . this is KJ.”

  “Hey. It’s Cameron.”

  Holy. Holy. Crap.

  I gripped the edge of my desk. Cameron Richardson was on the phone! He had called me! He had my number! Wait a minute, how did he get my number? Had he looked it up or . . . Who cared!? He was on the phone at this very second and . . . I wasn’t saying a thing.

  “Hello? You there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  I stood up. I couldn’t help it. I could not sit still.

  “Okay, so, you know that project Mrs. Driscoll assigned today?” he asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “I was wondering if you wanted to maybe work on that together,” Cameron said.

  No way. No. Freaking. Way.

  “Really?” I said. “Uh . . . sure.”

  “Cool,” Cameron said. “Do you want to set up a time? To, you know, work on it?”

  “Yeah! Sure. Definitely,” I said.

  Robbie was staring at me quizzically now. I couldn’t believe I had to do this with an audience. Breathe, KJ. Breathe.

  “How about tomorrow? After school? We don’t have practice since there’s a game tomorrow night.”

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow. What was I doing tomorrow? I couldn’t even remember what day it was. Like it mattered.

  “Tomorrow is perfect,” I said.

  Robbie crossed his arms over his chest, staring blatantly at me now.

  “Good. Okay. So we’ll meet in the library after eighth. Cool?” Cameron said.

  “Cool,” I replied.

  “I guess I’ll . . . see you in class.”

  “Yeah. See you in class,” I said.

  We hung up. I felt a scream bubbling up in my throat so I grabbed a pillow and let ’er rip. I didn’t even care that Robbie was watching me. Let him think I was weird. Who cared? I had a study date with Cameron Richardson!

  “Okay, I give. Was that Ryan Seacrest or something?” Robbie asked. “There was another sex scandel on American Idol and they need you to take over a vacancy in the top ten, am I right?”

  “Nope,” I said happily, dropping down on my bed. I still had the phone in my hand and my scream pillow across my lap. “That was Cameron Richardson.”

  Robbie blinked. “Cameron Richardson,” he said flatly.

  “Yeah. What?”

  “Cameron Richardson made you scream into a pillow.”

  “Yeaaaahhhh?”

  “Huh.”

  The smile started to fade. Something about his tone was not right. Robbie turned around and picked up a plastic Bugs Bunny from my collection. He rearranged the arms so that it was strangling the Bob the Builder next to it, and set him down again.

  “Huh what?” I said.

  “Nothing. I just would have thought a girl like you would be able to see right through a guy like that.”

  “A guy like what?” I asked. My skin prickled.

  “Like him,” Robbie said with a shrug. “He’s shallow as a puddle, which does make him pretty see-through.”

  “He’s not shallow,” I protested. I was getting all hot again.

  Robbie laughed. “Uh, yeah. He is.”

  Wow. Could he be any more condescending? I stood up, dropping the pillow to the floor. “How would you even know? It’s not like you guys hang out.”

  “Okay. Fine. So, what do you guys talk about?” Ronnie asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Nothing.

  “Lots of things,” I lied. “We talk about our classes, for one. He’s a really good student, you know.”

  “That doesn’t automatically make someone unshallow,” Robbie said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, and what makes you unshallow? The fact that you’re a music snob who uses sixties slang and tries to impress their parents with his cooking skills? Big whoop.”

  Did I just say “big whoop”? Robbie stared at me for a long moment. I couldn’t believe I’d just blurted all that to him. I never said what I really thought. And the kicker was, I didn’t really think all those things were bad things. I just couldn’t deal w
ith him insulting the love of my life.

  “Sorry,” Robbie said, raising his hands. “I’m just trying to be honest.”

  My jaw clenched as we stared at each other. That was so weird. He’d just sounded exactly like Leo. What had Tama said to him again?

  “Well, honestly . . . ,” I began. Then I paused. I couldn’t tell him to get the hell out of my face. That was not in me. But I could get the same effect. “I kind of have a lot of homework to do,” I finished, deflating.

  I sat down at my computer and opened a random Word document. He hovered behind me. What had just happened? We’d been having fun, making plans. And now I couldn’t even look at him.

  “All right, then,” Robbie said. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah! See you tomorrow!” I said with false brightness.

  My blood was rushing so loudly in my ears, I didn’t even hear him leave.

  ACT TWO, SCENE FIVE

  In which:

  TAMA AND I GO TO WORK

  “HEY, KJ! WANNA HANG OUT AT LUNCH TODAY?” FRED ASKED, walking sideways down the hall next to me, practically tripping himself with every other step. “I need someone to test me on act one. I think I can go off book!”

  “I can’t today, Fred. I already have lunch plans,” I told him. Or I would, I hoped. I was on my way to ask Tama to hang out right then so I could get her advice on Cameron. There was just no way I could go into this study date cold turkey. I needed help. Normally, I would have asked Steph, but she was even more boy-clueless than I was. Plus I was still a little annoyed at her about the whole Glenn thing. The last thing I wanted was for the day of my first Cameron date to be tainted by one of Stephanie’s Be Nice to the Geeks speeches.

  “Oh. Well, that’s okay. Maybe after school. You think?” Fred asked, hiking his pants up.

  My impatience mounted and my fingers clenched. Maybe I should just tell him off the same way I had Glenn. Be done with this once and for all. But one look in his puppy-dog eyes and I couldn’t do it. This wasn’t creepy Glenn. It was sweet little Fred. I couldn’t crush him. Not yet. Baby steps, KJ.

  “I have plans then, too,” I told him, trying to keep my voice even. “But I’ll call you tonight and we’ll figure it out, okay?”

  “Promise?” he asked, all excited.

  I laughed. I was Cameron-inspired giddy. “Promise.”

  “Thank you, KJ! Thank you so much!”

  “No problem. Bye, Fred!” I hightailed it up the hall, dodging a big group of freshmen who ideally would confuse him enough to give me a head start. By the time I got to the drama room, I was Fred free and, luckily, the door was still closed. Katz had kept the class late. My hero.

  Inside, the lights were out and a movie played on the TV screen at the front of the room. A couple of people were packing up their stuff, but most of them, including Tama, were riveted. I angled myself to better see the television through the skinny window. On the screen, two old-fashioned people with old-fashioned hairdos and old-fashioned clothes waltzed together in black and white. As the music swelled, the man dipped the woman and leaned in to kiss her. Then the words The End appeared over their faces and the lights came up.

  “All right! You can all go now!” Mr. Katz announced, stepping away from the wall. He opened the door and I sprang back. “We’ll discuss the movie tomorrow.”

  Ashley Brown sniffled as she walked out, clearly moved by the film. Tama followed after her, shaking her head. “That girl must have missed her meds this morning. She just bawled through that whole thing.”

  “You didn’t like it?” I asked.

  “No. It was cool,” Tama said as we turned down the hall together. “Especially the dancing. There was this waltz at the end . . .” She sighed dreamily. “I can’t even get Leo to step from side to side with me.”

  Ooh. Another seed for Robbie. Nice. That was, if Robbie ever wanted to talk to me again. And vice versa. I still hadn’t decided. Partially because I had other, more important things to focus on.

  “So, you’re never going to believe this,” I said under my breath. “Cameron called me last night.”

  Tama gasped. “No way! I knew it! I knew my plan was working! What’d he say?”

  “He wanted to set up a study date. For this afternoon,” I told her.

  “This afternoon? This is so killer,” Tama said. “I told you I would help you snag him!”

  I wasn’t entirely sure what Tama had done to help in this particular matter, but I decided to just let that go. Maybe she had been talking me up to him, as she’d said. I had no idea. But I wasn’t about to question her when I was here to ask for a favor.

  “I know. I can’t believe it,” I said. “So what do I do?”

  “What do you mean, what do you do? You go!” she said.

  “But what do I say? How do I act? What if I dork out in front of him?” I asked desperately.

  “You are not going to dork out in front of him,” Tama said. She took a deep breath and paused. “Okay. Here’s the plan. You, me, lunch in the library. I’m going to give you some pointers.”

  “Really? Thank you so much,” I said, already relieved.

  Tama smiled. “No problem. But first, we must go over the lighting rundown. Yesterday Glenn had me in a yellow wash during my solo. I don’t do yellow. I mean, does he want Sandy to look like she has jaundice during a romantic song?”

  “I’m on it,” I promised her. “I’ll talk to him.”

  Even though I hated him. After all, what were friends for?

  ACT TWO, SCENE SIX

  In which:

  FOOTSIE IS PLAYED

  “SO, DID YOU TALK TO GLENN AT ALL TODAY?” STEPHANIE ASKED me as we stood outside the library that afternoon.

  I had to practically eat my tongue to keep from saying something I’d regret. I mean, was she really bringing up Glenn two seconds before I was supposed to be meeting Cameron? Had she ever heard of bad karma?

  “No. And even if I did want to talk to him, he made it pretty clear he doesn’t want to talk to me, remember?”

  “Yeah. I just . . . I hate it when people are fighting,” Stephanie lamented, looking at her toes.

  “Steph, don’t take this the wrong way, but can we talk about something else?” I asked, glancing nervously around the hall. “I don’t really feel like thinking about Glenn right now, you know?”

  Stephanie blinked and suddenly seemed to remember what we were doing there. “Right. Sorry. So, are you ready for this?” she asked.

  “I hope so,” I said. I was, in fact, hardly breathing.

  “Well, don’t worry. It’s going to be great,” Stephanie assured me. Her eyes shone the exact same way my mom’s had before my confirmation. Like she was so proud of her little girl. “Call me later and tell me everything.”

  “I will,” I promised, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet as I looked past her down the hall. It sounds awful, but I just wanted her to go. I couldn’t be Cool KJ with an audience. Especially not one who would know how much I was faking.

  “Okay. Bye! Call me,” she said again before hugging me one last time and going.

  “Bye!”

  Of course the second she was gone, I wanted her back. I couldn’t do this. Who was I kidding? Maybe I should just go down to the auditorium and stay there. Mr. Katz had given me the day off to work on my biology project, but still. At least there I knew what I was doing. At least there I was in charge. Standing here I could barely even control my bladder.

  Okay. Forget this. I started to turn. To flee. But Cameron chose that exact moment to show up, freshly showered after gym class, the curls along his collar still darkly wet.

  “Hey.” He smiled. “You ready?” He touched my arm as he slid by me, and my nostrils filled with the scent of his spicy soap. Every joint in my body weakened.

  “Okay,” I squeaked.

  As I followed him, Tama’s mantra repeated itself over and over. Confident, Cool, No Giggling. Confident, Cool, No Giggling. Confident, Cool, N
o Giggling. She was really into the three-pronged plans of action.

  Cameron looked up from the table where he’d already settled in. “So, you sure you don’t mind working with a B student?”

  And I giggled.