Prom Queen Geeks

by Laura Preble

  “Shelby, don’t open that.” He has regained composure and now sounds more like a dad than a teenager caught smoking in the bathroom. “Please give it back to me. It’s none of your business.”

  I open the card. Inside, there’s a handwritten note: The last few weeks have been wonderful. I feel alive again, and I have you to thank. Just wanted to let you know how much it’s meant to me. And then the card is signed: Love, Rich.

  Now, even if my dad loved me more than anything, which I used to think he did, he’d never sign my card Love, Rich. Which means it’s not for me. Which means there is “someone special” in his life, and it’s not me. And I’m betting it’s not Euphoria either.

  “Shelby,” he begins, but I drop the card and storm out of the room, flee down the hallway, and slam my bedroom door. I lock it from the inside. He’s knocking gently, like he’s afraid he might break the door down or make me go over the edge and turn into crazy-psycho-teenage daughter. Come to think of it, that’s a strong possibility.

  “Shelby, can I please come in so we can talk about this?”

  “What is there to say, Dad?” I feel a ball of anger knotted in my stomach, and although I’m unreasonably pissed off, I’m also sad, so my traitorous tear ducts start flooding.

  “I want to explain about the card.” He taps again. “Please let me in.”

  I decide to open the door, if only so I can let him see the severe damage he’s inflicting upon me, his only offspring. I twist the lock open, and flop back down on my bed, facedown. I hear the door swing open slowly, then feel the weight of my dad sitting on the edge of the bed, making the old mattress sag a bit.

  “Honey,” he says softly. “Thea’s just a friend.”

  “Just a friend!” I snort into my pillow. “I don’t think so. She’s apparently ‘someone special.’ Right?”

  “Can’t friends be someone special?” He sighs heavily. “Look, I did try to keep you from seeing the card. You’re nosy.”

  I sit up, furious. “Nosy? Nosy?! Don’t you think I have a right to know who you’re interested in? Doesn’t it affect me, too? I mean, if you’re actually dating my best friend’s mom, don’t you think that might have some slight impact on me? And what’s that whole bit that you feel alive again for the first time? Have we just been living here in the emotional meat locker waiting for somebody to thaw us out?”

  “No, it’s not like that—”

  “Then what is it like?” I wipe at the tear tracks tickling my cheeks, furious with the stupid tears for ruining what would probably have been a pretty impressive hissy fit.

  Dad stares down at the floor and absently rubs the edge of the card that he’s still clutching. “It’s hard for you to understand, I know. You’re my daughter. That kind of a relationship is wonderful, and I love you very much. But it’s not the same as—”

  “Oh, so it’s all about sex, is it?”

  “Aw, Shelby, please. You’re making this much more difficult than it needs to be.” He holds up the card. “It’s just nice to be able to have someone my own age to be with. You’re fantastic company, but it’s different.”

  “What about Mom?” It kind of pops out, unexpected. “How could you date someone else? Mom was your wife. You promised to love her forever. You can’t just throw that away because it’s not convenient anymore!”

  There is a huge silence between us suddenly. He stares down at the floor, purses his lips, and seems about to say something, but then just drops the card and stands up. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, then walks out of the room, leaving To a Special Someone lying on my carpet.

  The phone rings, and I welcome the distraction. “Yeah?” I answer tonelessly.

  “It’s me.” The sound of crinkling cookie wrappers sizzles over the phone line. “The hurricane has blown over for now. Melvin stormed out, slammed the door, and peeled off in his sports car. Very dramatic.” I hear her munching.

  “Yeah, we just had some drama over here, too.” I kick at the card with my toe. “So, where do we go if there’s drama everywhere?”

  “Well, he’s gone, so I guess you can come over here, but if your drama’s with your dad, how can you get a ride? We really need to be able to drive.”

  “I’ll e-mail the governor and see if he’ll let me do it without the permit since I’m such an amazing kid.”

  “Good plan.” Munch, munch. “What was your drama?”

  I sigh. How do I tell her the awful news, that my dad has a big fat crush on her mom? I guess it’s like a scabby scrape on the knee: Best to just rip off the Band-Aid and be done with it. “Dad bought your mom a card and it was for a ‘Special Someone, ’ and I flipped out. He signed it ‘Love, Rich.’ I mean, what am I supposed to do with that?”

  Becca is extremely quiet on the other end of the phone. Even the munching has stopped. “A card?” she says softly. “Oh my God. Maybe they’re going to elope. Or maybe they’re going to go adopt an Ethiopian baby. What shall we do?”

  “That is so not funny.” The thought of my dad adopting any more kids isn’t even something I’d considered, even in my most paranoid moments, of which there are many. You can always count on Becca to troubleshoot more trouble than could possibly exist in the known universe.

  She’s braying her donkey honk laugh at me. “Listen to yourself, Shelby. Ooooh. He got her a card! I mean, geez. That’s so not even a thing.”

  “It is too a thing.” Obviously, the only way out of this stupid loop is to change the subject. “So, what’s up with Melvin?”

  “Ah.” I can hear her rip open another package of cookies. It’s a two-pack Oreo kind of day. “From what I could hear, he’s here to win Thea back.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. Apparently, he’s seen the error of his ways and realizes now that she’s the one for him. I think it could have something to do with the fact that she’s now somewhat interested in someone else, and he doesn’t like to lose.”

  “Didn’t he already lose her?” I ask. “I mean, they’re divorced. And didn’t he leave her?”

  “I’m not clear on the whole sequence of dramas.” Becca’s mom is yelling in the background. “Hey, gotta go. I think Thea needs some moral support or something. Romantic first aid. Don’t you think it’s kind of screwed up and unnatural that we have to help our parents with dating issues?”

  “Yes,” I say as I click the phone off. “I think it’s really screwed up.”

  I just sort of hang out in my room for the rest of the evening, studiously avoiding Dad. When we meet by accident in the kitchen, we ignore each other. An arctic wind blows from the refrigerator as I grab some cheese. Okay, well, that’s a bit of an overstatement, but it does feel kind of frosty in there.

  Euphoria, of course, notices the tension. As she’s carefully stacking dishes in the cupboard (dishes my parents probably bought together!), she uses a free claw to pat me on the shoulder. “Shelby, what is going on?”

  “Oh, did you notice the amazing lack of communication going on between me and Dad? Or was it the intense silence and the pretending we both live alone that tipped you off?”

  “It was pretty much because your dad told me you weren’t getting along.” She turns and blinks her eye lights sadly. Don’t ask me how she’s able to communicate feelings without eyebrows. She has skills.

  “Not getting along.” I shove the cheese drawer shut, reach for a Pepsi, and pop the top with unnecessary roughness. Poor little Pepsi can, taking the brunt of my anger. “Yeah. Well, did he tell you that he’s dating someone? That’s he’s dating Thea, my best friend’s mom? Isn’t that sort of sick? Kind of like dating your sister or something.”

  “It’s actually nothing like dating your sister, since you don’t have a sister,” Euphoria points out. “And they’re also not genetically related.”

  “It was more figurative than literal.” I stomp to the kitchen counter and begin savaging my pieces of cheese, biting into them with fury.

  “I’m not human,” Euphoria says tentatively, �
��but I do know that your father loves you very much.”

  “Sure, right now,” I spit at her. “But what about when it’s no longer convenient? What about if he wants to just replace me with a cooler, less difficult daughter?”

  Euphoria bleeps, and her bleep sounds puzzled. I don’t blame her really; as I listen to myself blather, I can tell that I’m making pretty much no sense. But when your hormones kick in and you’re feeling like the little bit of family you have is being threatened, I guess you say and do things that aren’t quite sane.

  “He’s not trying to replace your mother, if that’s what you think.” Euphoria turns away from me and rolls toward the living room. “He still talks to her picture, you know.”

  “What?”

  “He keeps a picture of her in his room, and he talks to her. I hear him sometimes when I’m cleaning. I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but it’s hard not to when you have supersonic hearing. I hope you don’t think I’m rude.”

  I’m still stunned by the idea that my dad talks to my dead mom’s picture. It’s sort of sweet and kind of strange all at the same time. “So, he hasn’t just forgotten her.” It’s more of a statement than a question.

  “Of course not.” Euphoria tries to snort with derisive laughter, but it comes out sounding like a blender choking on metal washers. “He’s just kind of lonely, that’s all. Humans can love more than one person, you know. It’s not like there’s a limited amount of love and once you spend it you run out.” She sighs and rolls off. “Good night.”

  I slug down some of the soda and leave the can on the counter. As I shuffle down the hall to my room, I realize that I have been a real jerk to my dad. And another thing I realize: What Euphoria says is right. You can love more than one person at the same time, and in different ways. I love Fletcher (yikes! I said it!) and I love Becca (as a sister), but I don’t have to choose between them, do I? There’s enough of me to go around, right?

  As I wash my face, I notice the dark rings under my eyes. Very attractive. I look a little like the Bride of Frankenstein with better fashion sense. “Stress will do that,” I remind my reflection. The girl in the mirror shakes her head at me. She’s right; I’m an idiot. As I shamble off to bed, I vow that tomorrow, I will be less stupid.

  I wake up early on Tuesday morning, get dressed, eat breakfast, and head out the door before Dad even wakes up. I want to talk to him about the personal revelations of my own stupidity, but I think I’ll wait until I’ve had some time to become one with my dumbness.

  At school, Becca’s already waiting for me at the drama building. “Morning,” she says, chomping her way through a breakfast burrito.

  I lean next to her against the cool stucco. “What are we going to do about our parents?”

  “Hmmmf.” All I hear is burrito babble. She gestures for me to wait a minute while she swallows the huge bite she just took. “First of all, we’re not going to do anything. I really think this will all blow over. Let’s think about it.” She belches and throws the burrito wrapper into a trash can painted with little wide-eyed panthers, our school mascot. “Thea is artistic and flaky. Your dad is scientific and . . . well, kind of flaky. But other than flakiness, they have very little in common. Once they realize this, the whole thing will be over on its own, and we won’t have had to do anything.” She gives me a self-satisfied smile.

  “What about Melvin?”

  She dramatically flops over at the waist like a tragic, spike-haired rag doll. “Melvin!” she screams. “He is driving me crazy and he’s only been here, like, a day.”

  “What did he do? What did he want?”

  She straightens out, shakes off whatever anger she’s feeling, and smiles broadly. “As I said, he’s decided that he and Thea should get back together. Horrible idea. She told him it was ridiculous, and asked why he’d driven all the way down to San Diego without calling first. He said he’d had an epiphany and that it couldn’t wait. He’s full of it.”

  “So, that’s not why you think he’s here?”

  She donkey honks again. “Please. Melvin have an honest motive? He’s a moviemaker, for God’s sake. His job is lying to people.”

  The curb at the front of the school is getting more and more crowded with kids, and out of the milling bunch Evie and Amber navigate toward us. “Morning,” Evie says.

  “Tell them!” Amber says excitedly. Since Amber’s gone black goth, she very rarely gets excited about anything except dark poetry and depression medication, but today she’s perky. Perky!

  Evie beams at us. “Okay, you two,” she says, her Australian accent getting a bit thicker with her excitement. “I’ve found a way to make sure that Geek Prom will be the event of the decade.”

  “Wow, a little ambitious, aren’t we?” Becca arches an eyebrow. Ambition is usually her department. Maybe it feels weird for her to be out-ambitioned by an amateur.

  Amber is practically jumping up and down, her creepy skull earrings bouncing happily off her earlobes. “Evie’s been chatting with some friends in Australia, and they have an idea about how we can get people to actually hold Geek Proms at other locations in the world, patch in to our conferencing equipment, and then we’ll have, like, five dances going on at once! They wouldn’t just be attending our dance, they’d be having an extension of the event in their own locations, so we could attend theirs, too.”

  “Could I dance with someone from Bulgaria, hypothetically?” Becca asks. “It’s always been a secret desire of mine.”

  “I don’t really have a lot of Bulgarian connections, but we could try,” Evie says, grinning. The bell rings, and amidst general chatter about virtual proms, we all head off to our first classes. I, however, am not as bubbly as I appear to be.

  As excited chatter of my friends washes over me, I get a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. If we make this event the event of the decade, there is no possible way to skip it, or move it, or make it go away. Now that Evie has introduced an even bigger plan than Becca’s (is that possible?), there is literally no going back.

  And, of course, this leaves me with a huge dilemma, an even bigger dilemma than I had before. If Fletcher won’t budge on attending the “real” prom, and I can’t avoid attending our big fat Geek Prom, how can I be in two places at once? Maybe if I could somehow bump into a wizard somewhere between first and second period . . .

  Instead, I bump into Fletcher. Literally. Trying to make sense of a handout on literary terms, I slam right into him, sending my papers and backpack cascading to the dirt. Sadly, the only thing I can concentrate on is how he smells. That’s right. The primal pheromones of our ancient ancestors rise up and all I can think about is how I want to burrow my face into his chest and inhale until I pass out.

  He’s bending over, picking up my stuff as I try not to allow my traitorous knees to buckle. “Hey,” he says softly. “Must’ve been something really important there. You actually made physical contact with me.”

  My cheeks go red, and I feel the heat of the blush rising like I’m an organic thermometer. “It’s good to see you,” I stammer.

  “Right.” He grins and loops my backpack over one of my shoulders, patting it paternally. “I’m assuming we’re still seeing each other, yes?”

  “Yes.” Mmmm. Boy smell. I want to roll around in it like a puppy in wildflowers.

  “I haven’t heard from you, though,” he says as he puts an arm around me and walks me in the direction of my second-period class.

  “I’ve been busy,” I say thickly.

  He doesn’t answer, but all too soon we’re at my class, and he lets go. “Well, can I see you after school?”

  My nose and my tummy are conspiring with each other against my brain. The argument goes something like this: The nose says, “We have to smell him some more,” while the tummy says, “He makes me feel all fuzzy and warm,” and then the brain butts in, screaming, “You guys are all wimps! If you give in every time you come within a foot of him, what chance do I have?” And then the nose and tummy v
ote the brain down and tell it to take a long, hot bath with a cup of herbal tea, and to just shut up already.

  “So?” he asks, unaware that I was just in a three-way conversation with several body parts.

  “Sure.” The brain is still screaming at me, but I ignore it. It’s kind of a bully, really. “But let’s meet at the baseball field instead of at the Rock.” Ah. The brain gets onboard and pitches in something useful. Can’t risk having Becca and Fletcher run into each other at this point, can we? As Euphoria said, I should just string this thing out for as long as I can, and maybe by the time the dances roll around, I’ll have a solution that will keep me from being killed by anyone.

  “Baseball field it is,” he says, flashing me a freckly smile. He bends down and gives me a quick peck on the neck that sets my whole body to vibrating like an urgent cell phone call.

  5

  ATTACK OF THE TEENAGED LUST MONSTER (or Three Shelbies and a Spiderweb)

  I wade through the rushing river of teenaged bodies as I make my way to the field after school. It’s an unpleasantly hot day, and even though I’m dressed in a cool cotton shirt and a short skirt, sweat trickles down my back.

  Avoiding the other Queen Geeks is tough because I know they’ll be looking for me. Geez, it sounds like I’m on the run from the law or something. Honestly, the whole conflict has made me feel like something of a criminal; I’m not a good liar, and knowing that I can’t commit totally to either side has made me feel like I’m being dishonest with both.

  Fletcher is leaning against the backstop, and little swirls of tan dust dance near him in the hot wind. “Hey,” he says, walking forward to meet me at the pitcher’s mound. He leans down and catches me in a long, sweet kiss, and I totally forget for a moment that it’s hot, that there’s weather, or that I have any problem whatsoever.

  “So . . .” He smiles adoringly at me, his green eyes crinkling at the edges. “Want to hit the malt shop, Scooby-Doo?”

  We link arms and start to walk toward the street. I lean into him, enjoying how our bodies fit together like puzzle pieces. “Too hot. Let’s just go find a nice glacier to park under.”