Nerdy by New Year

by Jessica Bucher

  I was nervous because this would be my first volunteer gig without Simon. When I arrived at the refuge, the Owl Lady was inside the exam room. The exam room was minimal at best, just one stainless steel table with a lamp and a whole bunch of medical equipment piled up in plastic bins.

  My jaw dropped to my toes when I saw what was on the table in front of her.

  “Is that…?”

  “Bald Eagle,” said the Owl Lady. “Your friend is lucky she didn’t hit one of these. That’s a crime, you know,” she replied, looking up at me with interest.

  “It’s huge,” I gasped. It was one thing to see an eagle flying above you. It was an entirely different thing to be standing two feet away from one.

  “Tell me about it,” said the Owl Lady as she wrestled to get the eagle to perch on her gloved hand.

  “Is it hurt?” I asked.

  “Nah, just giving her a check-up,” she said, smiling at the bird on her arm. “Follow me and I’ll show you where she lives.” She led me out of the module and across the yard to what looked like a large dog kennel with a greenhouse roof. I followed her through the chain-link door and across the little patch of grass inside.

  “Carly doesn’t need a large space,” said the woman, setting the bird down on a two-by-four that had been wrapped in astroturf. “She doesn’t fly anymore, and she doesn’t like company. I can relate to that,” muttered the Owl Lady. I suppressed a giggle as she showed me how to clean out the water bowl.

  “You’ll do this every Saturday for all of the birds we have. I’ll have you feed some too but only the ones that have imprinted on humans.”

  “Imprinted?” I asked. “Like in Twilight?”

  The Owl Lady snickered. “Yeah, like in Twilight.”

  “That means they don’t fit in with the other birds anymore, right?”

  I about jumped out of my skin.

  “Nice of you to show up,” said the Owl Lady, addressing Simon as if she had been waiting for him all morning. Meanwhile, I was just standing there with my eyes as wide as saucers.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Simon shrugged his shoulders. “I enjoyed the site visit so much I thought I might get some volunteer hours in here as well.”

  My mind raced with questions. When did he decide to volunteer? And why didn’t he tell me? Was it before or after pizza? Did he do it because he was interested in the Refuge or because he was interested in me? Okay, that last part was probably a stretch, but what if...

  “Yes and no,” said the Owl Lady, referring to Simon’s question. “Imprinting means they are used to being around humans. They don’t fear us and the other birds identify that as other. So in a way, you’re right, they don’t fit in with the other birds anymore. Doesn’t necessarily mean they like us any better,” she said, dodging the eagle which scratched at her glove while she talked. “Don’t worry,” she added, catching my wandering eye. “I won’t have you work closely with anyone surly.”

  I loved how she treated the birds like people. Each enclosure we visited had a story behind it, and as we swapped out the waters, she filled us in on who had come from where and how long they had been at the Refuge. Most of the birds were mid-rehabilitation, which meant they would be either released or returned to whatever establishment they came from in the near future. But several of them were lifers.

  “If they imprint, I keep them,” said the Owl Lady, laying a half frozen rodents on the perch in front of us. “This guy has been with me for ten years.” The bird in question was a snowy owl. It was large, beautiful, and oddly familiar.

  “I feel like I’ve seen her before.” I said, taking the smallest step closer.

  “You have a good memory then,” answered the Owl Lady. “Charlotte is an education bird. I bring her around the classrooms at the elementary school during the owl unit. The little ones love her and she’s good at her job. She never gets agitated. Even when a kid tries to get too close.”

  I nodded, knowing she was right. All these years bringing birds out here with Nora and I had forgotten about that part of grade school. The Owl Lady had seemed like a different person then. A hero. A magical, healer of animals. It’s funny how different you see things as a child.

  Once all the water was changed and each bird was fed, she led us to one last enclosure. This one was big. Maybe the size of my living room at home. There were several of the astroturf perches—some low to the ground, some three-to-four feet in the air, but just two birds. Eagles, like Carly, only these could still fly.

  “These two are a couple,” she said, looking from Simon to me and then back at the birds. “They do everything together, and they’re very protective of one another. I’ve tried to room other birds in here but these two bully them out every time.”

  “That’s sort of sweet,” I said, watching the eagles watch us.

  “I suppose it is,” said the Owl Lady. “If they were humans, they’d be the type to con me into letting their significant other volunteer with them. Even though I was very clear about the no-boyfriends policy.” She cocked an eyebrow in my direction before turning away from the eagles space.

  “Come along then,” she hollered back to us. “I’ll show you where you can take your breaks.”

  I waited till her back was turned to us before I shot Simon a look.

  “What?” he asked, raising his hands like he didn’t know why I was flustered. His smile, however, was a dead giveaway that he knew exactly what he was doing.

  Simon

  I wasn’t going to pass on an opportunity like this. We did some cool stuff in our club, but nothing as cool as feeding bald eagles, which was exactly why I chose to come. It had nothing to do with Lucy.

  Well, nothing outside of the fact that this was her first venture in volunteering, and as president of the club, I didn’t want her to feel abandoned or overwhelmed and quit.

  Plus, she was kind of my friend. And I had nothing better to do on my Saturday.

  But that was the only reason.

  Whatever this bird lady had in her head about me being Lucy’s boyfriend was laughable. Talk about ‘out of touch.’ I kept wanting to say, “Really? You think I’m her boyfriend?” I could show her pictures of actual hunks who could land a girlfriend like Lucy, and not one of them was a mathlete who looked like me. That was for sure.

  Lucy was practically staring daggers at me. I thought she’d be happy to see me, but it would appear that she was perfectly happy handling dead rats alone. I still didn’t regret coming. She’d warm up to the idea of having me around.

  After we helped her change a few more water bowls and fling dead rats at the birds, she took us to a break room, which was more of a trailer with a coffee pot and a couch. She left us there while she took a call. The door barely closed behind her before Lucy was questioning me.

  “You don’t trust me,” she said pointedly.

  “What are you talking about?” I laughed.

  “You think I’m going to mess this up. You don’t have to babysit me.”

  I could tell she was only partially joking. Her voice sounded more accusing than her facial expressions were revealing. She kept a half-smile as she stared at me, still without any makeup. I couldn’t get over how different she looked without it all. And younger.

  “I’m not babysitting you. If anything, you might have to take care of me. I’ve never handled animals before. Never even had a pet.”

  She squinted her eyes at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Shrugging, I said, “I just decided this morning.”

  “So this means I’ll see you every weekend this month?” she asked, walking over to the water cooler to fill a plastic cup.

  “I guess it does.”

  Where was I getting all of this confidence? I had a hard time looking Lucy in the eye, let alone flirting with her.

  “Is that a problem?” I asked.

  “Not if you’re going to offer to drive me…” She glared sideways at me.

  “I can do that.”
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  The next moment the door to the trailer opened and the Owl Lady called us out to give us more directions. The lady didn’t smile much, but I could tell Lucy liked her. She listened to her intently, obviously eager to please.

  “Check the water on the rest of the enclosures and rake the leaves around the grounds. If you finish early, I’ll sign your paperwork for the full four hours.”

  Lucy glanced sideways at me, like I was going to tell on her for breaking the rules.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I called back to the Owl Lady. Then, I turned to Lucy. “Let’s do this.”

  We made quick work of the water bowls. Lucy wasn’t shy with the cages or the birds, but she clearly wasn’t a fan of the dead rats. So we created an efficient system of pulling buckets out and filling them in rotation so that we managed to get all of the enclosures done within an hour.

  By the time we started on raking the leaves, we were both in a pretty giddy and friendly mood. I stopped caring that my nose was frozen and my fingers were numb because we were laughing too hard at my broken rake that kept losing its handle every time I tried to use it.

  After a while, the Owl Lady appeared, and I was afraid we were in trouble for being too rowdy and that she would ask us not to come back. Instead, she cracked a wrinkled smile and said, “It’s nice hearing laughter out here. Maybe I’ll lift that boyfriend-ban after all.”

  “We’re not—” I tried to correct her.

  “You’ve done great work today. I’ll sign your forms, and you two can run off and grab some lunch.”

  “Are you sure you don't need anything else?” Lucy asked.

  “Nah. You kids get out of here.”

  We put the rakes away and made a promise to bring her a new one next week.

  “Hungry?” Lucy said as we walked out to the car. She texted her mom that she didn’t need a ride home and climbed into the SUV.

  “Starving,” I answered with a smile. Volunteering together was one thing, but weekend and meals? This was becoming something else altogether.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lucy

  Was it completely insane to think that Simon and I might end our senior year as friends? Friends who kiss a little? I had been telling myself that it was weird to like Simon. That kissing him would be like kissing my brother, if I had one. The more time I spent with him though, the more clear it became that he wasn’t the boy I knew as a kid. I mean sure, he still had a row of Star Trek action figures on his bookshelf, and he had gone on and on about Disney’s “absolute decimation” of Star Wars that night at Joey’s Pizzeria—but he was different too. And not just because the puberty Gods had been kind to him.

  When I was with him, I felt smart, which felt a hundred times better than feeling pretty. Pretty was a compliment I could wash off in the shower. Smart stuck with me all night, as I lay in bed thinking about how his eyes met mine before nervously skittering away, at least half a dozen times at the refuge.

  The four days between our volunteering day and Thanksgiving morning felt like trudging through mud too deep to step out of. The truth was I was becoming dependent on spending time with Simon. He was all the things you couldn’t get enough of. Just seeing him in class suddenly wasn’t sufficient. I wanted to see him after school too. If only I had swim practice as an excuse. Those daily practices had helped Addy snag Gray.

  I thought about texting him Sunday to see if he wanted to work on our essays again, but I chickened out. Hanging out two days in a row without a real excuse was showing all my cards, and I still didn’t know if he had forgiven me let alone liked me.

  So I waited, horribly and patiently for the holiday lunch hour to arrive. Addy, Nora, and Gray all agreed to volunteer alongside Key Club at the soup kitchen. I suspected that Addy and Nora were more motivated by wanting to see me interact with Simon than altruism. I had spilled the beans on my crush Wednesday morning when I couldn’t stand keeping it to myself anymore. To their credit, they were fully supportive, even though Nora pointed out that both Addy and I had gotten majorly sidetracked on our goals this year. I thought about calling her out on the next to zero progress she had made on her own, but I kept my lips sealed. She didn’t officially have to start until the spring.

  The four of us met Simon and the rest of the club in the parking lot outside of the facility. I’d never served at a soup kitchen before, and I was immediately shocked to learn that the line of people who had nowhere to go but here on Thanksgiving wrapped clear around the building.

  “There are so many people it’s sad,” I whispered, leaning closer to Simon than was necessary.

  “Every year,” he said with a sigh before offering a small wave to Addy, Nora, and Gray. A small woman with wild salt and pepper hair crossed the parking lot to where we stood.

  “Four more Simon! This is the most help we’ve ever had.”

  “That’s all Lucy,” he said, pushing me just the tiniest bit forward, his hand resting on the small of my back. It was silly, but that small unanticipated touch made it hard to think straight. I had never felt like that with Trevor, or anyone else for that matter. There was a spark that happened when his skin touched mine. A spark so big it seemed impossible that only I felt it.

  “Lucy?” repeated Simon, making me painfully aware that people had been talking to me while I stood there imagining all the other places his hand might travel.

  “Huh?” I asked, shaking my head. “Sorry, I was daydreaming a little,”

  “What about?” piped Addy from behind, the smirk on her face letting me know she did not need me to answer that question.

  Simon

  Thanksgiving was my favorite day of the year. Usually a few other members from the club came, but it was hard to get many, being on a holiday and all. So when Lucy told me that she convinced the rest of the group to join in, I was shocked. And actually excited. I’d take another day with Lucy no matter what we were doing.

  They put us right on the main assembly line this year, which didn’t surprise me. Normally, I’d be washing dishes or cleaning tables, but now they had five bright-eyed kids with ear-to-ear smiles, and they wanted us to be the face of the program.

  Addy was at the top, doling out green beans and compliments. Then, Gray was on mashed potatoes and gravy. Nora was the mac and cheese girl, while Lucy and I were the turkey-cranberry combination.

  The line was never-ending, but not one of them frowned or complained even once. Especially Lucy, who had the honor of handing the plate over, and more than once offered to walk it to their table when they needed help.

  Finally, when the dining room had cleared, Sharon, the program coordinator, gave us each a plate and made us sit. It felt good to get off our feet, and we all collapsed. Addy rested her head on Gray’s shoulder and made him spoon mashed potatoes into her mouth. I looked at Lucy sitting next to me, admiring the way her eyes crinkled with a smile and the little blonde flyaways escaped her barrettes. She caught me gawking and looked like she was hiding a secret.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I like this,” she said quietly.

  “Me too.” I assumed this was volunteering and helping others. But then her eyes stayed on mine, and I started to wonder if this was being with me again. Either way, my response was the same. I liked this a lot.

  I dropped off the other three first, Gray going to Addy’s for their late Thanksgiving dinner, which seemed like a big deal by the nervous, tight-lipped expression on his face. On the long drive back from Nora’s farmhouse, Lucy was quiet next to me. We kept the radio on, and for the first time since we started hanging out again, the silence wasn’t awkward. It felt nice to just be comfortably quiet with someone, and when her hand rested on the console between us, I almost thought for a moment that she was inviting me to hold it.

  Pulling up to her house, the tension grew. Even after I put the car in park she didn’t move to get out. Suddenly, the environment changed from comfortable to sitting in a dark car with Lucy.

  She shifted toward me, so I turned t
o look at her. My mind raced with possibilities.

  “Simon, please let me apologize.” She said it so quickly, I wasn’t able to stop her before the words were out of her mouth. Her eyes stayed down at her hands, still between us, fidgeting like she was nervous.

  Meanwhile, my heart sank. I knew I should have wanted an apology, but I didn’t. I didn’t want her to even bring it up or act like it ever happened. I wanted to forget and never let that incident be a part of our relationship again.

  “Please don’t,” I mumbled, but she persisted.

  “I have to. I feel terrible, Simon.”

  “You shouldn’t. We were fifteen. I really don’t care anymore,” I lied.

  “You deserve an apology. What I did was terrible, and it ruined our friendship, and now I want us to…” Her voice trailed as her gaze finally traveled its way up to meet mine. I waited, my heart pounding in my ears. Wanted us to...what? The air grew silent and charged, like it was waiting for a lightning strike. Waiting for her to finish that sentence.

  “I want us to be friends again, Simon,” she whispered, finally.

  “We are friends,” I answered, but she didn’t look quite settled yet. Contrary to the glowing smile she had all day, now she had those sad eyes and pursed lips aimed right at me, tearing me to shreds. “I forgive you.”

  Which was true. Somewhere in the last few weeks, I did forgive her, but I hadn’t realized until now how much I did want that apology. It was like I was waiting for it before I let myself admit how much I cared about Lucy.

  And now that she said it, I should have felt free to do something about it.

  She took a deep breath, but I could still feel her hesitation to get out of the car. So I reached forward and wrapped my fingers around her hand and squeezed. “Don’t feel bad anymore, okay?”