Geek Charming

by Palmer, Robin

  Omigod—I had found my hobby!

  “I’m back,” Josh called out as he ran into the room, looking like he had just run the six-hundred-yard dash. His face was all sweaty, his Close Encounters of the Third Kind T-shirt was sticking to his body, and his glasses were crooked.

  Not only did I have a hobby, but my first rocking chair, so to speak, was standing right in front of me.

  Dinner was incredible. I know I tried to only have carbs one night every other weekend, but that night I just couldn’t help myself. Everything was just so good—especially the naan, this Indian bread that looks like pizza dough. Plus, since Sandy had cooked everything herself, it would’ve been rude not to have seconds. And, in the case of something called chana masala—chickpeas cooked in this yummy tomato cream sauce—thirds.

  “And then there was the time that we took Josh and his friends to the movies for his fifth-birthday party—” Sandy was saying as we ate dessert. I couldn’t believe there was room in my stomach for more food, but seeing that I had eaten one cupcake and three-quarters of a piece of pie, it seemed that there was.

  “—and there was this short guy in the audience with glasses,” Josh cut in.

  Sandy smiled at him. “So Josh got up and walked up to him and tugged on his sleeve and said—”

  “‘Are you Woody Allen?’” he finished.

  The two of them cracked up. Watching them, it was obvious they really did enjoy being with each other. I know Daddy loved me, but on the rare occasions we ate dinner together, he always had one eye on the newspaper or the television.

  “So was it Woody Allen?” I asked.

  Josh shook his head. “No. It was an accountant from the Valley.”

  “But he was very sweet,” said Sandy. “He gave me his card and told me to call if I needed help with my taxes.” As she stood up and started walking toward the kitchen, she stopped in front of Josh and ruffled his hair. “Even back then, I could see that Josh would stop at nothing to achieve his dream.” She reached down and started covering his head with kisses. “My little filmmaker.”

  “Mom,” he said, pushing her off. He was trying to look embarrassed, but I could see from the small smile on his face that he liked it. They seemed so happy.

  Even when it was time to do the dishes and there was no dishwasher.

  “I want to thank you for letting Josh do this film,” Sandy said as she handed me a plate to dry while Josh was in the other room trying to fix her laptop that she had spilled green tea on earlier that afternoon. “He’s been having so much fun. And I think it will really help his chances of getting a scholarship.”

  “Well, a promise is a promise, so it’s not like I could have ever not followed through,” I replied. “And it’s been fun.”

  She stuck her head out of the kitchen to make sure Josh wasn’t nearby. “I know I’m biased because I’m his mother, but even if I weren’t, it’s just that I think he’s a terrific kid and it breaks my heart that he spends most of his time at the movies or on the computer. Sure, years from now when he’s won his third Academy Award, it probably won’t bother me as much”—she smiled—“but I just wish he were in situations more often where he might meet some . . .”

  “Girls?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Exactly.” She washed a mug before handing it to me to dry. Drying dishes was actually very relaxing. Maybe I’d suggest to Marta that she stop using the dishwasher so that we could have some nice bonding time together. “And in addition to Josh being a bona fide genius—we had his IQ tested when he was in kindergarten and he scored a hundred and fifty-five—he also has such a delightful sense of humor. I really do think he’s going to be the next Woody Allen. Less neurotic, obviously, because of the therapy I insisted he have after the divorce, but just as clever.”

  “Mom. What are you doing?!” Josh yelped. We turned around from the sink to see him standing there. From the fact that his face was so red, it was obvious he had heard more than enough to know Sandy was trying to do the hard sell of him being good boyfriend material. Little did they know that when I was done with him, thanks to my new hobby, he’d be a great boyfriend. Not for me, obviously. But for someone else.

  “Oh, hi, honey. We’re just having a little girl talk,” Sandy replied with a smile. “You didn’t tell me what a wonderful conversationalist Dylan is.”

  I had barely been able to get in two words, but it was nice to know that she was able to tell that about me. Maybe she had taken an Intro to Psychicdom class at some point.

  “Come on, Dylan,” he said. “There’s a DVD I want to lend you that I think you’d like.”

  I followed him to his bedroom, which, like the other rooms in the house, wasn’t all that big, but the way he had decorated the red walls—with lots of movie posters and framed record-album covers—gave it a funky feel. On the wall across from his bed was a bookshelf filled from top to bottom with DVDs. “Wow. Have you actually watched all of these?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  I walked over and started checking the movies out. “It’s like being at Blockbuster,” I said. Not only were they in alphabetical order, but they were divided into genres: comedy, action, drama, horror. It was funny—Josh may have been kind of messy with his appearance, but when it came to anything having to do with movies, he was annoyingly neat.

  He pulled out a DVD case and handed it to me. “Here.”

  “What is it?”

  “Manhattan. Woody’s other true masterpiece.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “About two opposites who fall in love,” he replied.

  “But that’s what Annie Hall’s about. He’s not very creative when it comes to thinking up plots, is he?”

  He looked at me like I had just killed his dog. That is, if he hadn’t been deathly afraid of animals because of the incident with the guinea pig and had a dog. “It’s a classic story line,” he snapped. I was beginning to get that you could never, ever, dis Woody Allen in front of him.

  “Okay.” I shrugged, walking over to examine his other bookshelf, which was filled with mostly books about movies and biographies about directors.

  He took out his camera. “Can I film you? It might be interesting to include some footage of you out of your environment. You know, Dylan-in-a-Film-Geek-World stuff.”

  “You’re not that geeky,” I said to the camera.

  He peeked his head around and looked at me, amazed. “I’m sorry. You’re going to have to say that last line again because what I thought I heard you say was that I wasn’t that geeky.”

  I shrugged and turned so that he wasn’t shooting my right side. “You’re not. I mean, yes, you have some serious geek tendencies, but they’re not, like, fatal or anything.”

  I could tell by the way that he quickly burrowed his head back behind the camera that he was all embarrassed.

  “You know, Josh, I don’t know if you realize this, but you have this annoying habit of hiding behind that thing when you’re trying to avoid something.”

  “I do not,” he replied, lifting it up even higher so even more of his face was covered.

  “You so do,” I said. “Between the camera and your inhaler—”

  He put the camera down. “I told you—”

  “—your lungs didn’t develop properly because you were premature and that’s probably why you have asthma. I know, I know.” I held out my hand. “Just let me hold on to it for a while,” I challenged.

  His eyes widened like I had just told him I was canceling his Netflix subscription. “What?”

  “I’m not going to take it home or anything. Just while I’m here. I mean, if you’re not dependent on it, it shouldn’t be a big deal, right?”

  He started straightening the stuff on his desk. “I don’t know where it is,” he lied.

  “It’s where it always is—in the pocket of your jeans,” I said.

  Busted, he reached in and took it out. “Okay, but you better remember to give it back to me before you leave,” he warned
. “The Santa Ana winds are going to be really strong tonight, and because of my lungs, I tend to cough a lot.” He started fake-coughing. “As you can see, it’s starting to get bad already.”

  I rolled my eyes as I took the inhaler and shoved it into my own pocket. It was a good thing he was going to be a director and not an actor. “Okay, now you can go back to hiding behind your camera,” I said.

  He picked it up and started filming me again as I started fiddling with his Luke Skywalker figure on the shelf. “So have you ever been in love?” I asked.

  “With someone I’ve actually met in person?”

  I nodded.

  I could see him slump. “No,” came his muffled reply.

  “But you’ve been in love with people you haven’t met in person?” I asked, almost breaking off Luke’s arm as I tried to get it to move the light-wand thingie.

  He shrugged as he walked over and took Luke out of my hands, placing him back in his original position on the shelf. “Yeah. You know, girls I’ve had e-relationships with and stuff. Girls I’ve met on MySpace and Facebook.” I saw him move his hand toward his pocket. “Hey, you still have my inhaler, right?”

  I patted my own pocket. “Yup. Right here. Interesting that you get nervous when we start to talk about girls,” I remarked.

  “I’m not nervous,” he said.

  “Whatever. Anyway, I think it’s kind of hard to fall in love with someone if you’ve never met them in person,” I said, flipping through the cases. I’m sorry—I know he knew more about movies than most Jeopardy! contestants, but there wasn’t one silly romantic comedy on any of the three shelves. Mostly they were super old, like from the 1970s, so all the actors on the covers were dressed in hideous clothes with even more hideous hairstyles.

  “Not if you have a good imagination.” He shrugged.

  “So are you in an e-relationship now?” I asked.

  He took the DVDs that I had taken out of the bookcase and realphabetized them. “Nope. There was this girl from Boston named Heidi but last week she wrote me that she thinks she might be gay, so that’s probably not going to work.” After he was done, he picked the camera back up and started hiding again. “And there’s a girl here that I’m kind of interested in anyway,” he mumbled from behind the lens. The last part was said so softly a normal person would have missed it, but because I have bionic ears when it comes to anything that’s considered romantic gossip, I heard it loud and clear.

  I stood up and yanked the camera away from him. “Omigod—who?!” I demanded. “Does she go to Castle Heights?”

  He nodded, one hand going to his pocket while the other grasped at the air toward the camera.

  “OmiGOD,” I squealed louder, bouncing on his bed before leaping up again. “You have to tell me who it is! Is she a senior?”

  He nodded again and started to cough. “Can I have my inhaler back now?”

  “Josh, you’re okay. You’re going to be fine,” I said in an authoritative voice, like you hear ambulance drivers use with car crash victims on TV. “So, do I know her?”

  He nodded a third time. “Please can I have it back?”

  I sighed and fished it out of my pocket and handed it over.

  He took a squirt and closed his eyes. “Much better,” he said as he grabbed the camera from the bed.

  “But you don’t understand—I’m dying! You have to tell me who it is!” I moved the camera away from his face. “And stop hiding behind that thing.”

  “I’m not hiding,” he replied, his head shrunk down into his shoulders like a turtle. He put the camera down and flopped down face-first on his bed. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” he moaned into his pillow.

  “What? I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m fantastic at keeping secrets. For instance, I never told anyone about the fact that Lola made out with Ted Fenton at Cynthia Greenburg’s Sweet Sixteen last year even though she was technically still going out with Richie Marino at the time.”

  He lifted his head off the pillow and looked at me. “Okay, well, you just told me,” he replied.

  “Whatever. I know I can trust you. So who is it?” I couldn’t believe that all the time Josh and I had been hanging out, he hadn’t mentioned he had a crush. Frankly, I felt a little betrayed. Friends don’t let friends not know about their crushes.

  “I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” he said as he grabbed a little rubber E.T. figurine off his night table.

  “But I can help you,” I said. “You know, give you advice and stuff.” I pointed to E.T. “And the first piece of advice is that you might want to put all that stuff away if you ever have a girl over. Not so sexy, you know?” I definitely had my work cut out for me when it came to mainstreaming him into regular society.

  “It’d just be a waste of time.” He sighed, placing it in a drawer. “Someone like her would never like someone like me.”

  “You don’t know that. Like your mom said, you’re kind of a catch—you know, in a mathlete kind of way. And I’m going to help you become an even bigger catch,” I said. “Okay, even if you’re not willing to tell me who she is yet, you’ve got to at least give me some clues. You said I know her . . . is she one of my good friends? Omigod—is it Lola? Do you have a crush on Lola?!”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “No. It’s not Lola.”

  I marched over to his closet and flung open the door so I could see exactly what I was dealing with when it came to wardrobe. From the few pairs of jeans, three white oxford shirts, and a suit jacket, it turned out not much. “Good because she’s completely obsessed with this guy John Guzman who goes to Buckley, which I so don’t understand. I mean, who wants to go out with someone who calls himself the Guz? I can’t even imagine what he’s going to end up wearing to Fall Fling.” I turned to look at him. “Wait—is it Hannah?!”

  He rolled his eyes. “No. It’s not Hannah.”

  “I’m glad because even though she doesn’t want anyone to know yet, Joe Yudin just broke up with Deb Eiseman and asked her to Fall Fling.”

  He shook his head. “And now I know.”

  I walked back to the bed and sat down next to him.

  He turned his face to the side. “I don’t think you’re friends with her,” he said into the pillow. “In fact, I know you’re not friends with her.”

  “Okay, this is so making me crazy. At least tell me if she’s blonde or brunette.”

  He flipped over on his back and stared at the ceiling, a faraway look in his eyes. “A really deep, rich chestnut color, like Faye Dunaway in Network.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Never mind.” He sighed.

  “How tall is she?” I demanded.

  “I don’t want to play this game anymore,” he said, walking over to the fish tank in the corner of the room.

  “I thought you didn’t like animals,” I said.

  “I never said I didn’t like them. I said I had issues with them because of the incident,” he explained as he sprinkled some food into the tank. “Besides, it’s just mammals I have problems with. These are fish.”

  I shook my head. This was going to be more work than I thought. “Okay, um, Josh? Rule number 422: whatever you do, don’t spend your first date with your crush giving her a biology lesson. Or whatever class it is where we learn about mammals. What’s their names?

  He looked up. “Orson Welles and François Truffaut.”

  “Who are Orson Welles and François Truffaut?”

  He sighed. “Only two of the most important directors of the twentieth century,” he replied.

  “Okay, whatever, back to your crush.” I picked up my Sidekick. “So she’s brunette and I’m not friends with her,” I said as I scrolled through the address book. The good news was that because we lived in L.A., there were double the amount of blondes than brunettes, so it wouldn’t be so difficult to figure this out. “Oh! I know—Karina Morgan.”

  He turned to me. “Karina Morgan has been to rehab twice in the last year—why would you think I�
��d have a crush on her?”

  “Before she became a pillhead she was a very nice girl.” I continued scrolling through the list. “I know—Stacy Eisenhauser.”

  He gave me the same look I gave my dad when he had asked me whether I wanted to go to the Neil Diamond concert at the Staples Center with him last year. “Not only does Stacy Eisenhauser look like Rosie O’Donnell, but she came out last year and is dating Jordanna Olson,” he said.

  “Well, you did mention you had a habit of falling for lesbians, so it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility,” I shot back.

  “I can’t believe you have her number programmed in your phone.”

  “That’s because she helps me with my trig homework sometimes. I think she might have a crush on me.” I went back to scrolling. “Hmm . . . is it—”

  “Okay, game over,” he announced, walking toward the door. “I have a calculus quiz tomorrow, so I should really start studying.”

  “That’s so not fair,” I whined. “You have to tell me.”

  “Some other time. I promise,” he said as he led me out of the room.

  I said good-bye to Sandy, who was curled up on the couch wiping away tears as she watched a show about lost pets on Animal Planet, and promised her I’d come back for dinner after she finished her Introduction to Persian Cooking class.

  “Thanks for having me over,” I said to Josh as he walked me out to my car. “And for this,” I said, holding up Manhattan.

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “Just don’t throw it around in that bag of yours so it gets scratched or anything. It’s the Millennium edition, so it was pricey.”