Prom Queen Geeks

by Laura Preble

  “Melvin. Becca’s dad.” I gravitate toward my beautiful purple velvet sofa, which suddenly feels like an oasis of comfort. Flopping facedown onto the soft cushions, I can sort of pretend that I’m not in the middle of some stupid personal dating crisis involving my dad.

  The cushions sag slightly as Dad sits down next to me and strokes my hair. “Honey, why are you so upset? Was he badly hurt?”

  As I so often do, I react in a totally inappropriate way: I start laughing like a hyena on crack. I almost choke, I’m laughing so hard. Euphoria slaps my back with her claw, which doesn’t stop the choking laughter, but does cause a little abrasion where my bra strap rubs against my skin. She’s stronger than she thinks she is. Anyway, it snaps me out of my hysteria.

  When I come up for air, I see Dad glancing desperately at Euphoria as if he’s looking for answers in her sensors. “Sorry,” I say, still laughing a little.

  Dad seems relieved that I haven’t totally lost it. “So, was he really hurt?”

  “Not too bad,” I manage to say without laughing. Why a man’s concussion and possible broken bones is funny, I can’t say. Maybe it’s the irony of my dad inquiring about the health of a guy who is totally destroying my dad’s life. Yeah, that’s probably it.

  I manage to get to bed without any more cross-examination, claiming female problems. (Again, this has to be used sparingly; if my dad catches on that I use this excuse whenever I want to ditch him, I won’t be able to use it again.) Unfortunately, Euphoria is another story entirely. She has a perfect memory of every excuse I’ve ever used, and she knows it’s not possible for me to have three periods a month.

  “What’s going on?” she drawls as she shuts my bedroom door behind her. I’m lying in the dark, staring at my ceiling, picking out constellations: The Lying Goat, the Cheating Man, the Heartbroken Father, the Daughter Who Wishes She Could Join the Peace Corps But She’s Too Young. “Shelby, I know something is going on. What happened with Becca’s father?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, that’s just too bad.” Euphoria doesn’t bend at the waist very easily, but she makes an attempt, easing her ponderous bulk onto the edge of my mattress. Springs groan, complaining. “I don’t want to see you moping around for the rest of your life, so spill your beans, young lady.”

  I sit up, stripping off my shirt as I do. I suddenly feel hot, and just want to lie naked under my ceiling fan. Maybe I caught some disease at the hospital. “I have no beans to spill, Euphoria.”

  I toss my dirty clothes in the corner, which I suspect might distract Euphoria. She hates when I’m messy. But she doesn’t buy it. “What happened with Becca’s father?” she repeats. “I’ll use my Taser if I have to.”

  “Oooh. Threats from my robot. That’s something Cosmo Girl doesn’t usually write about.”

  Euphoria remains silent, the only sound a whirring where her processors are analyzing my speech patterns, perspiration, and the pitch of my voice. “Did he hurt Becca?”

  “No!” I sputter. “Nothing like that.”

  “He hurt Becca’s mother, then.”

  I sigh, exasperated. “No, he didn’t hurt anyone. A cow mosaic fell on him. He was helping Thea.”

  The whirring gets louder, and her lights blink more rapidly. After a minute, she says, “It’s exactly what I said before. He’s trying to win her back, isn’t he?”

  “Nobody calls it that anymore” is the only thing I can spit at her. I can’t deny it, because my robot can tell when I’m lying.

  “And he’s injured, which means that Becca’s mother feels obligated to nurse him back to health, leaving your father—” Euphoria turns toward the bedroom door and says quietly, “Oh.”

  “Exactly.” I sit up, hugging my knees to my bra-swaddled chest. “What do we do?”

  8

  INSIDE JOKES (or How to Keep People Away with Humor)

  It seems like every Saturday morning, my phone rings way too early. Today, it’s the cell chirping at me like a torturous canary. “Hello?” I grumble.

  “Shelby? It’s Fletcher.” My heart jumps, does a backflip, and sticks to the roof of my mouth, making it tough to speak. “Are you there? Hello?”

  “I’m here,” I mumble thickly.

  “Can I come over?” It’s way too early for this kind of thing; I had expected maybe a note, a text message, a MySpace comment, but never direct confrontation. I feel myself blush at the thought of Fletcher being within ten miles of me.

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll attack you again?” I chuckle, a deep, throaty chuckle that I think the movie queens would use, except that I sort of choke and sound like I have a hair ball. So much for glamour.

  Thankfully, he laughs. “I’ll take my chances. Be right over.”

  Only minutes to look human on a Saturday morning? I gulp. “Sure.”

  After I hang up, I spring out of bed (okay, maybe spring is an exaggeration), wash my face, pull a comb through my hair, and throw on eight or ten outfits before deciding that nothing I own looks good.

  “Jeans? Shorts? Skirt?” I hold up blue denim, khaki, and a hippie-dippy daisy-flowered peasant skirt. “If only I could go naked!”

  Euphoria, who always manages to be around whenever I say something embarrassing, rolls in. “Naked? Did you say naked?”

  “Yep.” I choose the jeans, always a safe bet. As I pull on a green linen camp shirt and begin to button frantically, I slide past Euphoria and dig into my shoe cupboard for a pair of sandals. Toe nakedness, always a turn-on. But not as aggressive as full-on nakedness.

  “Shelby, is someone coming over?” She seems to primp in front of my mirror, even though I don’t think she has anything to actually primp.

  “Fletcher just called.” I shove in behind her and pull a brush through my hair again, hoping to make it look full and movie- starlike. As I snap on the silver bracelet, the one he gave me for Christmas, I answer her unasked question. “We’re going to have a serious talk.”

  “About what?”

  Dad knocks on the door just then, opens it, and pokes his disheveled head inside my room. “Honey, have you heard from Becca’s mom? I’ve tried calling her all morning, and can’t get an answer.”

  Guilt rises up like a puke-flavored tidal wave. Should I tell him? Should I try to pretend I no longer speak English? I pretend to be looking in my jewelry box for something so I don’t have to meet his worried gaze. “No, I haven’t heard anything. Maybe she’s at the hospital. You know, to be sure Becca’s dad is okay.” I glance up to see if he accepts this sort-of probably true explanation.

  He looks relieved. “Oh, yeah. That’s probably why. You have to turn your cell phone off in hospitals.” He notices that I’m applying mascara, a sure sign that something is going on. “You’re dressed before noon. What’s the occasion?”

  Euphoria butts in. “Fletcher is coming over!” she sounds so excited I’m afraid she might blow a circuit board or something. “I think a reconciliation is in the air!”

  “Were you having a problem I didn’t know about?” Dad eases into the room a bit and puts on his concerned-dad eyebrows. “What happened this time?”

  “Nothing, nothing.” I apply lipstick and mentally will my dad to disappear. I do not want to tell him why Fletcher and I haven’t been talking. How would that conversation go? Well, Dad, I tried to jump Fletcher in his own house, and when he fended off my slobbery advances, I ran, embarrassed, and have avoided him ever since. Your daughter is officially a slut puppy. Yes, I’m sure that would ease his mind.

  Euphoria starts to talk, but then the doorbell rings, and she rolls off to answer it. “He’s here? What, was he parked around the corner at the 7-Eleven?” I hiss as I finish with a spritz of perfume. Dad moves out of my way to avoid being trampled.

  Fletcher is standing in the hall, casual in shorts and a white T-shirt. My pulse starts to pound when I see him, as if he’s a double espresso shot dripped directly into my heart. “Hey,” I say softly, shyly.

>   He meets me halfway and flicks me in the head.

  “Ow!” I rub the spot where he finger-assaulted me. “What was that for?”

  “For being such a clueless doof.” He steps back from me, folds his arms, and gives me a freckly smile. “Why didn’t you think you could talk to me?”

  Euphoria and Dad are standing, observing, like we’re playing the home version of a cheesy soap opera. “Could we have a little privacy?” I ask pointedly.

  “Hmm?” Dad asks, bewildered.

  Fletcher rolls his eyes and grabs my arm gently. “How about we go somewhere for a little bit? Would that be okay?” He looks at my dad, who nods. Then he turns to me, a twinkle in his eye, and says, “Can I trust you to behave yourself?”

  I aim a slap at his shoulder, but he’s too quick and ducks it. That’s the downside of knowing someone well. They anticipate your every act of violence.

  Thankfully, Dad doesn’t understand the “behave yourself” remark, and just tosses me a confused, dadlike look. “Is it okay if we go out for a while?” I ask, trying to keep my distance from Fletcher. I wonder if my dad can see the intense rush of heat that seems to have engulfed my face. Guess not, because he just nods and shuffles off to the kitchen to forage for food.

  We walk to the car silently, keeping a space bubble between us so that we can’t touch and suddenly ignite the magnolia tree in the front yard. Fletcher opens the passenger door of his old car for me, then scoots quickly around to the other side.

  “Where are we going?” I ask as he backs down the driveway.

  “Someplace where we can talk uninterrupted.”

  “In public, I hope?” I don’t meet his eyes. Just in case that was an inappropriate remark, I want to be spared the look of disapproval. But he just laughs.

  “Yes, in public.” He stares intently at the freeway traffic, never glancing at me.

  We just keep driving and driving, fifteen minutes, half an hour, forty-five minutes. “Geez, where are you taking me? Tijuana?” I finally ask.

  “Unless Earth has shifted polarity or something, I’d say no. We’re headed north.” He chuckles smugly to himself. I refuse to give him any more opportunities to skewer me with his laser-sharp wit, so I just shut up for the rest of the trip to nowhere.

  We come around a bend in the road and I see a gorgeous site—the crashing blue-green waves of the Pacific Ocean. Now, you’d think since I live in Southern California that I’d live at the beach, that I’d have a surfboard and personal bikini wax technician and all, but that’s not true. I hardly ever get to the coast, even though it’s not that far away. This explains why, when I see the ocean, I act like a five-year-old going to Disneyland.

  “Oooh! Are we going to walk in the sand?” I squeal. “Make a sand castle? Go clam digging?”

  “Something like that.” He parks the car and starts walking up a steep asphalt path. A sign reads TORREY PINES STATE BEACH. I’ve never been here before. The park smells like pine car air fresheners, only more real, and the sound of the surf pounding on the sand in the distance mingles with the call of birds and the screaming of toddlers frightened by biting sand flies.

  Bottlebrush limbs slap me as I crouch, nearly doubled over, trying to catch up to Fletcher’s maniacal hiking; as I’ve said before, I get winded licking a stamp. “Why did you bring me here?” I wheeze.

  He doesn’t say anything, just keeps climbing up the mountainous road. (To be truthful, it’s not that steep. Three little kids with light-up Elmo tennis shoes run past me as we trek upward. I’m just a wimp.) He disappears around a curve in the trail, so I put on a burst of turtlelike speed to catch up to him.

  When I round the corner, I see something that takes my breath away (even though I really don’t have any breath at this point, so I’m speaking metaphorically). Fletcher is standing on an outcropping of sand-colored rock, framed by two towering gray-barked pine trees. The wind whispers through the waving limbs, mixing the sea-salt smell with the dark evergreen scent.

  There’s a weathered wooden bench parked next to one of the trees, and he sits on it; he motions for me to sit next to him, so I do. He puts his arm around my shoulders and gestures majestically toward the ocean below us. “I give this all to you.”

  “I was hoping for jewelry,” I murmur, hoping to hide the fact that I’m perspiring, and it’s not because of the exercise.

  “See?” he says, flicking me on the head again. “You ruin the moment.” I scoot away from him just an inch, and he notices, drops his arm, and faces me, grinning. “I mean, you are just terrified we might have an actual meaningful conversation, huh?”

  “You promising me the sky and the sea isn’t exactly what I’d classify as meaningful—” I begin, but before I get any further, he puts a finger on my lips.

  “I brought you here to make a bet with you.”

  A bet? Hmm. “Okay. What is it?”

  “I bet you can’t have a conversation with me while we’re here that doesn’t involve a joke.”

  I wait for the real reason we’re here, but he just sits there. “Seriously,” I finally say. “Let’s start over. Why did you bring me here?”

  He laughs and looks out at the ocean, the wind ruffling his penny-colored hair. “You even think my bet is a joke. See? You can’t have a conversation that doesn’t involve jokes.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” I follow his gaze and focus on the whitecaps, little moveable meringues on a big blue-green cake. “You love my sense of humor.”

  “Yeah, I do.” He faces me again. “But you keep me away with it.”

  Okay, now this is starting to sound like one of those Hall-mark specials where one person tells the other one that they have toenail cancer or something, and they want to be sure their relationship is secure before the time of trial begins. I start giggling, thinking about the possibility that Fletcher has toenail cancer.

  “See?” He shakes his head at me. “You’re doing it right now.”

  “I didn’t say anything!” I protest.

  “You’re saying it in your head! I can almost hear it! I bet if you repeated what you were just thinking, there would be a joke in there. Am I right?”

  “No,” I lie, tracing the shape of a cancerous toenail in the sandy dirt.

  “Okay.” He sighs. “Here’s why I brought you up here, really. I wanted to get you away from Becca, from Euphoria, your dad, everybody, and I wanted to make you talk to me. I mean, really talk. About what’s buried under all the jokes.”

  “I—” I begin but he gestures for me to stop.

  “I’ll talk first, uninterrupted, and then you can answer, as long as you don’t do it with a joke. Deal?” I nod. Of course I can do this. What does he think I am, an idiot? Who can’t go through a whole conversation without joking? Maybe it’s the toenail cancer . . . maybe it’s spread to his sense of humor. Oops. I just did it, huh? Maybe it will be harder than I think.

  He gazes out at the ocean for a minute before speaking again. “We’ve been through conflicts, breakups, reunions, karaoke. We’ve been through a lot. Obviously, there’s something here, or we wouldn’t keep coming back to each other.” He glances at me for confirmation of this: I just nod. I nod seriously, with no jokes attached.

  “Okay,” he continues. “But I’ve noticed that whenever we start really getting close to each other, I mean where we get past the jokes and the stupid pranks, that you do something to screw it up.”

  “I—” I try to interrupt, but he shushes me.

  “Let’s look at the evidence,” he says, sounding like one of those guys with the spray-on hair from Court TV. “Last year, you decided that I liked Samantha Singer instead of you, and you avoided me like I had leprosy with a touch of black plague. After I tricked you at the dance, you gave me another shot. In the fall, we went on that date at the Italian restaurant and you stacked sugar packets instead of looking at me. Then you created a conflict between me and Becca that meant you’d have to ‘choose’ between us, causing you to conveniently give
up the boyfriend for the best friend to preserve your independence.”

  “But I—”

  “Not done.” He shakes his head at me like a granny giving a lecture on good hygiene. “When I wanted to include you in my life and my friends’ lives, you acted like a spoiled brat, insulted my friends, ran away from the party, and told your dad we were all boozing it up, and then walked around school for a week wearing a Jamaican Rasta wig so I couldn’t find you.”

  Okay, he’s got me on the Rasta thing. I mean, that was really pretty extreme.

  “And finally, we have the other day.” He leans forward, puts his elbows on his knees and stares at the gravel path as if he hopes some answer will be spelled out in the tiny pebbles. “For lack of a better term, you jumped me. In my own house. With my little sister nearby. She could’ve been severely damaged, you know.” He winks at me.

  “You just made a joke,” I say in a strangled voice.

  “I’m allowed to make jokes.” He sits back, folds his arms imperiously over his chest. “I don’t have a problem with keeping people away with my jokes.”

  “That’s because they’re not very good,” I mumble.

  “I’ll let that one go because I set you up.” The breeze ruffles his hair, making him look like a model in a sportswear commercial. Well, if sportswear commercials featured geeky red-haired guys with toenail cancer. Joke alert! I did it again! He’s right: I am hopeless. “Anyway, I think all of those incidents, including the spontaneous jumping, were all ways to keep me from really getting close to you.”

  “How can I be more close to you than when I have my tongue in your mouth?” I screech too loudly. I know it’s too loudly because a troop of Brownies nearby is shooed away from me by their shocked-looking leader.

  “I know, I know, it sounds crazy.” He gazes into my eyes, strokes my hair, and I feel myself starting to melt. “And don’t think I didn’t like it. But I think you did it for the wrong reason.”

  For once, I don’t make a smart remark. I just slump there against the rough wooden bench, letting the tiniest spark of an idea flare up from some midnight-dark place in the basement of my mind. Could he be right? Is that what I do, keep people away? And with him, the physical thing—could that be a way for me to concentrate on something other than the feelings I have for him?