Nerdy by New Year

by Jessica Bucher

  “Ah,” said the Owl Lady. “You’re here to make sure we don’t lock her up in a cage, make Cinderella scrub the floors, that sort of thing.”

  Simon laughed. “Nope, you can have her clean whatever you like. I’m here to make sure there is someone to sign off on her volunteer hours and actual work to be done.”

  “Oh, there is work to be done,” said the Owl Lady. “That much I can assure you. Come on,” she said, pushing past us. “I’ll show you around.”

  Simon

  After our quick tour of the facility, I stood back while Lucy made her plans to return that weekend. She seemed almost excited, and I had to admit, the little baby birds with their weird fluff and awkward hopping kinda had me wanting to help out too.

  The Owl Lady kept glancing at me with scrutinizing eyes, like she still didn’t believe I was not the boyfriend. It made me laugh, but I could feel Lucy tense next to me when she said it.

  When her business was done, we walked in silence out to the car. She had a new gleam in her eye, and it made her look so much prettier than all that eyeliner.

  “Let’s celebrate,” she chimed as we reached the car. She was practically bouncing.

  I laughed. “Celebrate what?”

  “My new job!” Her shriek echoed through the quiet interior of the SUV.

  “You know you’re not getting paid for this new job, right?” I couldn’t help but tease her a little. “Alright, let’s celebrate. Where are we going?”

  “Joey’s Pizzeria,” she said followed by a long hum. “It’s like the cheese is calling for me.”

  I let out a laugh, but as soon as I put the car into drive, my heart sank. Lucy and I were going to the number one date spot in Delinki...by ourselves. Maybe she would text Addy or Nora. With their arcade games and cheap but oh-so delicious pizza, it was always packed. There was a pretty decent chance that we would see people from school there.

  And she wanted to go with me.

  I was still feeling cold toward Lucy after telling Gray the story at lunch, but when the text came in, I was like a moth to the flame. I wanted to be around her...more than anything. And that was new.

  More than a couple times, I caught Lucy looking my way like she was trying to decide something. Finally, after the third time her eyes landed on me, she said, “Thanks for your help. I know you don’t have to do this.”

  “Sure, I do. It’s my job.” The words came out in a rush, and something in her expression fell when I said it. But what could I say? That she was my friend? Was she my friend?

  When we walked into Joey’s, it was abundantly clear that we were going to be alone. So, we ordered a pie to share and split a handful of arcade tokens. Lucy’s smile got an extra dozen from the guy behind the counter. I shook my head at her as we walked over to the skee-ball corner.

  “You probably don’t know this,” she said as she loaded the game with a coin. “But I’m like really good at skee-ball.”

  Dropping a token in the lane next to hers, I avoided her gaze as I added, “I did know that. We came here in seventh grade for Michaela Sanchez’s birthday party.”

  Lucy froze and watched me. “That’s right.”

  I hated that any memory of our old friendship felt like a stab wound to whatever this new thing between us was. Here we were trying to start over, and it was like the past wouldn’t let it go. It made me feel bad for bringing it up.

  Desperate to clear the tension, I picked up a ball and bounced in my hands. “What you probably didn’t know is that my big brother worked here for four years and let me play for free. I’ve had a lot of practice.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Oh, it’s on.”

  We played for the next thirty minutes, launching ball after ball at the machines. She thought it was funny to squeak my name right as I was about to throw, causing me to hurl the ball into the wrong lane more than once. To get her back, I poked her ribs or blew in her ear on her turns. Neither of us scored as well as we thought we would, but we ended up coming out almost tied. Lucy won four times. I won three. All of our tokens were almost spent, but since we were both rubbing our shoulders, we decided to leave the rest there for the next kid.

  Our pizza was waiting on the table for us, still steaming. Lucy was right. It was practically calling our names. My stomach started rumbling as soon as we sat down.

  “So, can I ask you a question?” she said between bites. “Why Key Club?”

  The time it took to chew and swallow gave me a minute to think of a response. The altruistic answer was usually the easiest to go with: the desire to give back to the community. But that wasn’t entirely true.

  “Honestly, it gives me something to do. And I’m comfortable there.”

  “What do you mean comfortable?”

  I stared at my pizza as I said, “Once I joined the club, the rest of the school started leaving me alone.” I chose not to elaborate, but she got the idea. The embarrassment of the incident kept me from doing anything for nearly all of my sophomore year. And as it turned out, being a loner was like bully fuel. Once I was in Key Club and had made a few friends, it was a gateway to the swim team. I honestly believed that once I belonged to something, no matter how nerdy it was, I wasn’t so alone anymore. With that newfound confidence, I was finally able to move past it all.

  She nodded but avoided my gaze too. “Oh.”

  For a minute, I expected her to say something. Maybe even apologize, but I prayed she wouldn’t. I didn’t want to unpack that mess of dirty laundry all over our delicious pizza. Things were going so well.

  “Let me ask you a question,” I said back to her. She looked practically tied in knots, afraid of what I might ask next. “What on earth do you see in those ugly baby owls?”

  She tossed her balled up napkin at me and let out a laugh.

  “Be careful. They had blood lust in their eyes,” I said in a mocking tone.

  “They are angels!”

  “I’m not accepting any liability if you lose a finger.”

  She covered her face as she laughed, and I was hit with a sudden wave of something new. Not nostalgia, not anymore. When her laughter died down, she held onto a crooked smile, like her face refused to frown.

  As we finished our pizza—almost the whole delicious thing, we talked about everything from her family to mine, school, college, summer. Two hours went by, and when I looked down at my phone, I realized it was almost nine. And even though it was my weeknight curfew, I didn’t want this night to end.

  I kept getting this feeling like I was relearning everything about Lucy. Like we were building something new.

  Chapter Nine

  Lucy

  Joey’s Pizzeria had been…well, it had been exactly like a great date. There was food, and games, and me staring into Simon’s dark eyes, like they belonged to Kit Harington and not my grade school best friend.

  Who was I kidding? He was hotter than Kit Harington now!

  Somewhere between sophomore year and the end of this swim season he had gone from a little gangly with good skin to whoa has your hair always been so wild and beautiful? I kept wanting to reach up and run my hand across his scalp. Like when we were ten and he buzzed his head. Only this time I wanted to let my hand slide down to the back of his neck and pull his lips to mine before he could remember that he hated me.

  My goal was to get him to forgive me, but it was getting harder and harder to stay focused. What if Simon was the guy? What if all the Trevor Hatfields and broad-shouldered football players were the learning curve on my way back to where we started? I kept picturing us at that middle school dance. Wondering what it would have been like if I’d never outgrown my glasses or learned how to operate a blow dryer? Would Simon and I be together now?

  This whole line of thinking was null and void. It didn’t matter if Simon could be coerced into skee-ball and pizza. He wasn’t going to trust me—not after I’d betrayed him on a school-wide level. Forgiveness was one thing, trust was another, and you didn’t go forming romant
ic relationships with people you didn’t trust.

  The smart thing to do would be to stop thinking about his face and all of those lovely things attached to it. But that was hard, especially since, in addition to being real nice to look at these days, he was funny too. I smiled as I pushed open the door to the library, remembering the super nerdy joke he’d told the night before at dinner. My smile was short lived, however, because Trevor and two guys I recognized from his gaming tournaments were sitting around the Key Club table.

  “Hey,” I said, reluctantly grabbing the only available seat, next to Trevor.

  Trevor smiled sweetly. Too sweetly. It reminded me of when we first met in Chemistry—except now I knew better. At the front of the table, Simon nervously called the meeting to order, asking the new members to introduce themselves.

  Trevor kicked things off. “I’m Trevor. I’ve already been accepted to college, but I need volunteer hours to score a summer internship. I figured if Lucy can do it, anyone could.”

  Wow, I thought. Way to introduce yourself and insult me at the same time. I was already regretting my apology. Maybe there were actually people who deserved bad things to happen to them.

  Nick went next, followed by Chandler, both of whom admitted they had nothing better to do this afternoon.

  Hailey rolled her eyes. “I guess you’ll be wanting all of them to go to D.C. now too?” she asked, glaring at Simon for an answer.

  The expression on his face was painful to look at. He couldn’t exactly say no, not when he was the one to point out the bylaws, yet the trip was three weeks away. How could the club raise enough money for three new people? Plus Simon didn’t have enough time to hold three more sets of hands the way he was holding mine. Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to.

  “I’ll stop you right there,” said Trevor, holding his hand up in the most condescending way possible. “We have no interest in spending our winter break on a legislative tour. That’s about as appealing to me as enrolling in summer school just for funsies.”

  “Alright,” said Simon, looking relieved. “On with business then.” The rest of the meeting consisted of us turning in our volunteer hours and discussing upcoming volunteer opportunities. I didn’t enjoy the little look of glee that overtook Hailey’s face when she saw that I only had three hours to record. Two for the creek clean-up and one for the site visit. But I didn’t feel like rubbing the Wildlife Refuge in her face, not when Trevor was sitting at the table and looking for volunteer hours himself.

  Once the meeting was over, I packed up my things and headed out toward the parking lot. I paused when I heard Simon calling after me.

  “Interesting turnout,” he said. He was looking at me like I knew Trevor would be there, when in all reality, I was as surprised as he was.

  “I suppose it’s good to have more members,” I said, my voice trailing off.

  “Yeah….” Was it just my imagination or did he look a little disappointed?

  “It would be nicer if they weren’t the scum of the earth,” I added, giving Simon a little nudge in the ribs. I don’t know why but I felt like it was important to make sure Simon knew I didn’t like Trevor being there anymore than he did.

  He grinned a little. Not a big toothy smile but a small turn of the lips, just enough to make my heart start doing all the things it shouldn’t.

  Simon

  After the high-high of Saturday night at Joey’s with Lucy, Monday came in like a freight train to put a stop to any and all good fortune. Walking into the club meeting to see Trevor Douche-field and his two idiot friends at the table, made me want to turn right around and skip the meeting altogether.

  Was this what Lucy was talking to him about the other day at lunch? I felt a little better that she didn’t seem too thrilled about it either, but just seeing that guy and knowing that, at one point in junior year, he had his lips all over hers made me nauseous. He didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her, but for some reason, Lucy had a bad habit of dating the biggest jerks.

  At least now she could see him for the scum of the earth that he was.

  “What are you up to now?” she asked, leaning against my car in the parking lot. I did a double-take as I set my backpack in the trunk. “I mean...now that you don’t have to babysit me on my volunteer jobs.” There was that evil wink again.

  “Oh,” I stammered. “I have this essay to write for my RA application at MSU.”

  “I didn’t know you were gonna be an RA,” she said, her eyes tracing my face with a little more intensity than I was used to.

  As she leaned in, I caught a whiff of her flowery perfume. She still didn’t wear a lot of makeup, and the setting sun behind me brought out the flecks of gold in her green eyes. The chill air turned her cheeks a rosy pink. I found myself leaning back in toward her, resting against the side of the car. I desperately wanted her to wrap her arms around my waist and settle her head against my shoulder the same way I’d seen Addy and Gray on date night. I mean...movie night.

  “Yeah…” I mumbled, nearly forgetting what were talking about. “Filling the Resident Assistant position will give my family a discount on room and board in college. It’s not due until January, but it’s long, and it really has to be perfect.”

  “Will you let me read it when you’re done?” she asked, leaning in even closer.

  I swallowed. “Yeah, of course.” Which was a total lie. I would definitely not let Lucy read that essay. I’d already decided that the paper would follow my transformation from near homelessness after my dad’s tire shop burned to the ground to being in the top five fastest freestyle swimmers in Minnesota. Lucy’s family would inevitably make an appearance, since it was her mom who raised the money to rebuild the shop and how Lucy and I became friends in the first place. That fire was our origin story.

  “Want some company?” she asked. “I have a science paper to plan too.”

  “Heck yeah,” I answered a little too eagerly. She let out a little giggle as she walked around to the passenger side to get in the car. I didn’t know if her new habit of hanging out with me was part of some greater scheme to earn my forgiveness, but if she kept making this a habit, she was really going to get my hopes up.

  When we walked into my house, I remembered that my sister was off on Monday nights, which meant she would be sitting on the couch, watching me walk in the front door with my own sworn enemy. The look on her face when Lucy sent her an awkward wave as we passed through to my room was worth its weight in gold. There would be no limit to the crap she would give me later for this. But at this point, I was walking Lucy Caldwell to my bedroom. Nothing could have brought me down.

  She plopped down on my bed after I offered her a seat in the large office chair. “Nope. You need that for your brilliant essay writing. I can chill out here.”

  “You want a soda?”

  “Sure,” she smiled.

  Once I entered the kitchen, my sister was there to ambush me with a vice grip on my arm as she yanked me toward the pantry. “What is happening?” she whisper-shouted.

  “We’re just studying.”

  She stared at me with an angry brow. “Has she apologized?” Her voice was full of sass and attitude, and there was no pleasing my sister.

  “Basically,” I mumbled. I pulled two cans of coke and a bag of pretzels out of the pantry as I yanked free from my sister’s grip.

  Her scowl followed me all the way out of the kitchen until I disappeared down the hallway. When I got back to the room, Lucy had some acoustic music playing from her phone. She was sitting cross-legged on my bed with a heavy notebook and her laptop open around her.

  I froze for a moment. The sight of her so comfortable in my space left me reeling.

  “Get to work,” she said, lifting her eyes toward me.

  “Yes, ma’am.” But the open document with some sparse notes and a loose outline was staring back like it was mocking me. There was no way I was going to get a word written now.

  “You don’t look very productiv
e over there.” She was peering at me, through her long hair, which she must have recently pulled out of its ponytail. It had a wavier, wild look to it than normal.

  “I don’t want to write this essay,” I whined, leaning back in my chair. “What are you working on?”

  “Chemistry,” she mumbled as she reached for a pretzel from the bag. “But I don’t understand any of it.”

  I stood from my chair and plopped sideways on my bed across from her. “Let me see it.”

  She turned her laptop toward me, and I could see how she would get confused. The formulas and elements on the screen were pretty intimidating for even me.

  “Why are you taking Advanced Chem?” I asked as I grabbed her pencil to fix an error on her paper.

  “I wish I knew,” she mumbled, turning her head to watch me change her answer.

  “I can help you, you know.”

  “Why do you think I’m here?” she said with a wink.

  That wink again.

  “Simon, I’m kidding.”

  I laughed it off then grabbed the pretzel right out of her hands and popped it into my mouth. “I’ll do all of your Chem homework for the rest of the year if you write this one essay for me.”

  “That is tempting,” she said, “but you’re going to rock that essay. I know you will.”

  When I looked up from her homework, I found her eyes on my face, and for a moment I froze. Her words hung in the air between us, and milliseconds felt like full minutes while we stared at each other.

  I didn’t know why she was complimenting me or why she even cared, but I felt that familiar tug again, like things with Lucy were careening in a direction I wasn’t prepared for.

  Chapter Ten

  Lucy

  I was only a little bit nervous about volunteering at the refuge. It wasn’t that I was afraid of the Owl Lady. Sure, she was rough around the edges, but I wasn’t Nora. I didn’t think she would turn me into stew and hide me in one of the bird enclosures.