by Laura Preble
But I’m still afraid. If I don’t give her the answer she wants, will I be permanently booted from the Queen Geeks? And how would I feel about that? It’s too complicated to figure out in the doorway of the Endless Pot, so I just laugh it off. “Look, honestly, I’ve got a ton of homework to do, and Dad’s waiting . . . can I call you later?”
She studies me; her lip twitches slightly, the only indication that she might not truly believe me. “Sure,” she says, smiling her most dazzling coffee goddess smile. “Call me later.”
I climb into the car next to my dad and burst into tears. Stupid brain.
10
AN EASY LESSON IN CLONING (or How to Be Your Own Twin)
“And I think Fletcher’s right, I mean, I do always make jokes. But if I really try to stop it, am I just pretending to be something I’m not? And what about Becca? I feel like I’m letting her down by simply having a relationship at all. And now there’s this whole Evie thing.” I pause for breath and look at my dad’s glazed expression as he sips his third glass of iced tea through a mangled straw. (He chews on them when he’s nervous; so do I.)
He slurps a last gulp, then wipes his lips on a napkin, eyeing me with a puzzled expression. “Honestly, Shelby, I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Great!” I throw my napkin down. “I just poured my heart out to you, and you have no idea what I said. Fantastic!”
“Hang on, hang on,” he says, motioning toward the waitress. “Let’s get dessert and we’ll try it again. Maybe my blood sugar is still too low.” He motions to our waitress, a middle-aged woman with jet-black hair that looks like those Halloween wigs you buy for ten bucks at the drugstore.
“Hi there,” she oozes at my dad, trying to shove her squeezed-up breasts over her “Trudy” name tag. “See anything you like?”
Dad blushes and studies the menu as if he’s reading the Bible. He orders us two slices of cheesecake, and Trudy leaves, disappointed that he didn’t order something more personal.
He leans back against the fake blue leather of the booth. “It’s like they smell blood in the water,” he murmurs, glancing secretively at Trudy’s retreating rear. “I think I’m going to become a hermit.”
“You tried that. It didn’t work,” I remind him. “But let’s get back to me. Can’t you give me some adult wisdom or something?”
“I really am trying, honey. It’s just so . . . detailed.”
“I know.” Honestly, I don’t even understand my life or my various crisis situations. “Okay. Let’s take one thing at a time. What should I do about Fletcher?”
Dad sighs and rubs his headache spot again. “Why do you need to do anything? Can’t you just let things flow as they do?”
Oh, that makes sense. Just let life take its course, and hope for the best? Doesn’t he know that the only way you can truly be happy is to totally manipulate details in your life so they all line up perfectly, like little white pins waiting to be knocked down by God’s big cosmic bowling ball? What I say is, “Fletcher wants us to be a real couple. I mean, he wants us to have a meaningful relationship, not just some dumb, casual, let’s-go-to-the-malt-shop thing.”
“Do people still go to the malt shop?”
“Not really. But my point is, he isn’t going to be okay with me treating it like it’s just casual.”
Dad shrugs in his seat, squirming like he’s sat on a spring or something. “I’m not really sure what you mean by ‘meaningful’ and ‘casual.’ Could you go into detail on that? So I don’t have a heart attack?”
“Dad,” I whine, frustrated. “I’m not talking about sex!” Of course, the very second I say that, everyone has stopped talking, so there is a huge, silent gap in conversation that is conveniently filled by my voice. People turn and stare at me in various stages of trying to look like they’re actually ignoring me. One little girl squeaks, “What’s sex, Mommy?” and I feel myself turning a bright, bright red.
Dad is sort of laughing, trying to look concerned. Trudy brings our dessert and shoots me a conspiratorial grin, as if she and I understand each other. Yuck.
The discussion sort of ends after that, and we occupy our mouths with cheesecake instead of embarrassing personal conversation. Dad picks up the check that Trudy the waitress drops in his lap, and cringes. “She left me her phone number and her bra size,” he says, disgusted. “I pray to God I have exact change.”
Thankfully, he does, so we wait until Trudy is occupied in the kitchen and we make a run for the door. We don’t stop until we get to the car, just in case the desperate waitress decides to throw some frozen peas under our feet to stop us so she can molest my dad. “Women are confusing,” Dad says as he maneuvers the car out of the parking lot.
“Why is it that guys think women are confusing, but women think guys are confusing? Shouldn’t there be some kind of dictionary or something to help us translate for each other?”
Dad laughs sadly as he brakes to a stop at a light. “I’m a lot older than you, and I clearly don’t get it. I mean, look at Thea. I thought we . . . well, I thought maybe . . .” He glances sideways at me. “I guess I thought she might be someone I could be interested in. But now, with Melvin . . . I guess I just misread it.”
I gaze absently out the window as we pass groups of people already starting their Saturday night. “I don’t know, Dad. I think she likes you. But she has history with Melvin, you know.”
“And a daughter,” he adds. “I don’t want to get in the middle of that. I guess I should just admit defeat and build something else.”
My cell buzzes in my pocket. “Hi, Becca.”
“So, are you finished with your dad yet?” From the sound of it, the girls have migrated from the coffee shop to an arcade or something; electronic pings and buzzes and bleeps make it hard to hear.
“Not quite,” I lie. “We’re just heading home now.”
“We’re coming over.” Becca says something to someone else in the room with her, then comes back to the phone. “We’re trying to get a ride over. Thea’s being difficult, but Amber’s mom might be able to pick us up. Honestly, you need to get your driver’s license. Anyway, we got a few more ideas we want to tell you about, and I need you to help with a couple of things.”
I guess I’m going to be involved whether I want to be or not. “Okay,” I say lamely, minus my spine.
Dad can sense my deflation. “So? Further complications?” We’re stopped at a light, and a group of punk rock girls shuffles across the street smoking cigarettes. “I’m just glad you’re not out doing stuff like that,” he says as he gestures toward the girls. “Your problems are relatively minor compared to substance abuse and tattoos.”
“Hey, Becca has a tattoo,” I remind him. “And maybe I should get one, too.”
He flinches. “Please don’t. I don’t want to have to spend your college fund on laser removal.” We’re only a couple of blocks from home, and Dad knows that the moment of reckoning is at hand for me. “So, what are you going to tell her? Are you going to help or not?”
“Seems like an easy question,” I answer. I start sweating more the closer we get to home. “Maybe I should do what Euphoria said. Just help them plan it and then don’t show up.”
“Is that what she said?” Dad pulls into our driveway, and thankfully no one else is there yet. “She’s pretty smart. I’d help you out myself, but I’m going to be gone that weekend. There’s a conference in Santa Barbara.”
And that’s when it hits me, the solution to all my problems, conflicts, and issues: I will just be in two places at once. It’s a great plan! I’ll help plan the Geek Prom, work on it as if I’ll be attending, then on the night of the event, I’ll show up to help them set up, forget something, and go to the real prom with Fletcher. I’ll just duck back and forth all night, and everyone will be happy. Nobody will know I went to the other event, and no one will be mad at me, and I’ll have a boyfriend and a best friend, and everything will be super swell.
I am a
genius. I can’t wait to tell Euphoria.
Becca and the girls arrive about ten minutes later, and Dad makes sure he’s nowhere to be found just in case Thea exits the car for a change. Fired up about my new plan, I am all smiles, cheery, perky even. “Wow, you’re in a good mood all of a sudden,” Elisa notices as we flop over various pieces of furniture in the living room.
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
Becca frowns suspiciously. “An hour ago you were the face of doom, and now you’re bordering on manic. What happened?”
“Nothing.” I produce a clipboard filled optimistically with lined paper. “I just want to get going on this project. Now, what’s my job?”
No one says anything at first; Amber finally pipes up. “We just thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with it, to be honest.” She peers out from behind her long, shiny hair. “Because of Fletcher and all.”
“Fletcher!” I yell a bit too loudly. Everyone looks startled, so I tone it down. “Ha! What, do you think he owns me? That he can tell me what to do or something? I’m not his sidekick, his geisha, his trained pet monkey.”
“Uh, I don’t think anyone accused you of being a trained pet monkey—” Elisa starts, but I interrupt. I’m on a roll.
“I’m nobody’s girl. I work for myself. I’m independent, a free thinker, somebody who makes her own decisions and blows whichever way the wind takes her.” I’m out of breath at that point, so I just shut up.
“Well,” Becca says, clapping slowly. “And the Academy Award goes to . . .”
“No, really,” I say, a bit more subdued. “I don’t belong to Fletcher. I like him, of course, but I make my own decisions.”
Becca squints at me as if trying to decide if I’m telling the truth or simply telling her what she wants to hear. I guess she decides I’m being honest, because her face relaxes into a wide-open smile. “Great,” she says, grinning. “We’re glad to count you in.”
Even as she says it, though, I get this little gray thundercloud feeling in the bottom of my stomach. You know the spot: It’s where the part of you that knows best goes to hide when the irrational person running your brain tries to chop them up with an axe. Pen poised over clipboard, I chirp, “So, what am I going to be doing?”
“Have you lost your mind?” Euphoria squawks at me in the comfort of my room. Everyone has gone and I’ve confided to her my entire crazy plan. “There is no way you can carry it off!”
“But you told me to go with it . . . remember? Just make each person believe that I was on their side, and then they’d never know the difference until the night of the event. But this way, they’ll never know.” I sip the delicious hot chocolate she’s made for me and wiggle my bunny slippers. Pajamas are the best; I believe everyone should wear them all the time and then there would be no war.
Euphoria buries her metallic head in her claws. “Oh, Shelby,” she moans. “I’ve failed you.”
“What?”
“Don’t you see?” She beeps and rolls toward the door and back, her version of pacing. “This is a classic failed scheme from some old television show. You try to be in two places at once. You begin the evening fairly well, but things happen: Traffic stops. You lose a shoe. A black hole opens up between the space/time continuum. Something. And there you are, trapped between the two events, participating in neither, and both your friends are angry and will never forgive you, and you’ll end up becoming scrap at some auto yard south of the railroad tracks.” She rewinds the conversation in her head, chirps, then says, “Well, probably not the scrap part. That would be me. But you will alienate all of your friends.”
Wiping the chocolate milk mustache from my lips, I contentedly lean back against my headboard and sigh. “Nothing can bring me down. I know this will work.”
“What about transportation?” Euphoria crosses her arms, click-click, and stands there blinking at me self-righteously. “How do you plan to get from the drive-in to the hotel and back?”
My bunny slippers droop, disappointed. “I hadn’t thought of that,” I admit slowly. “I’ll just get my permit before then. And I’ll get Dad to let me borrow the car.” I smile triumphantly. Crisis averted.
“He won’t let you borrow the car!” she screeches. “Are you insane?”
“Oh. Yeah, you’re right.” I bite the inside of my cheek, something I do whenever I have a particularly difficult puzzle to solve. “I guess I’ll make copies of the car keys.”
Euphoria doesn’t say anything; she rolls out of my room and down the hallway toward the kitchen. “Mark my words,” she moans like some movie-set ghost. Nobody seems to have confidence in wildly unworkable plans anymore.
It turns out that my job for Geek Prom is going to be the food. That’s actually perfect, because I can order it, have it delivered, show up to set it up early, and then ditch out to meet Fletcher at the hotel where the real prom is being held. (I realize the hypocrisy that goes with me calling it the “real” prom, but it’s the shortest description I could think of. Saying “consumeristic overpriced formal event” is a real mouthful.) I spend most of Sunday calling various restaurants to find out if they cater, and how much it will be, and whether or not they have vegetarian dishes in addition to pigs in a blanket.
In the midst of my telephone frenzy, Fletcher calls. “So?” he asks as if I should know the answer to that question.
“So what?” I answer as I finish jotting down prices for the Fancy Clam Seafood Buffet.
“Did you have some time to think about our little outing yesterday?” I hear him munching over the phone. “I’m having pizza, by the way, if you’d like to come over and share it with me.”
I gulp involuntarily. Go to his house? The site of my most recent major embarrassment? “Uh . . . Pizza sounds really tempting, but I have some homework to finish before tomorrow.”
“Ah.” He sounds disappointed, but not upset. “Anyway, the other thing I wanted to ask about is what you’re wearing. To prom.”
“Uh . . .” Again with the eloquent comments. “Hey, do you know why Becca and Carl broke up?”
“Oh, do I know. Yeah, he told me the whole story. But I’ll tell you after you tell me what you’re wearing. I don’t want to clash.”
Dang. I tried the old evasive maneuver and was shot down. “I really haven’t found anything yet.”
“Color? Could you just pick one?”
“Why don’t you pick?” I flip through my notes and notice that the cost for the Fancy Clam would be twice as much as buying tofu and veggie platters from The Naked Fruit, my favorite health food store. See, vegetarianism is better for you and cheaper. I’m not entirely sure I can sell the other Queen Geeks on soy burgers, but we’ll see.
“Blue?” he says.
“Fine. Blue it is.”
He stops chewing. “Really? That was easy. Okay, then. I’ll be looking for something with blue in it. That’s great. Oh, and what happened with Becca and Carl was that he asked her again if she’d please go with him to the prom and just have her thing on another night, and she said no, and he asked her why, and she said it was none of his business, and then I guess there was some throwing of pillows or something, and Carl finally just decided enough was enough, and he split.” He clears his throat and says pointedly, “I’m sure glad we didn’t end up having a big blowup like that. I think Becca’s a little too stubborn, don’t you?”
I stop myself from defending her; after all, if my evil plan is going to work, I have to keep it on the down low or everything will be ruined. Excessive standing up for friends might tip Fletcher off, so I play meek and mild: “I guess.” Well, I wasn’t about to give him more than that; I do have some dignity to maintain, even if it is slightly tarnished.
After I hang up, I feel overwhelmed by all the stuff I have to do. Checking the calendar (a cute one with big-eyed dogs and cats morphed into disturbing shapes), I see that I have exactly four weeks before P-Day (prom day, for those who couldn’t figure it out). I know I can take the classroom port
ion of the driver’s ed stuff online, and then I can get a learner’s permit, and I can get Dad to take me out driving so I can get some experience before the big day.
Euphoria notices that I’m frantically surfing the Web looking for driving courses. “Shelby, I hope you know that you’re not allowed to drive by yourself,” she clucks over my shoulder. “Even if you do get your learner’s permit, you have to have an adult in the car with you at all times.”
“What’s your definition of an adult?” I ask, tapping away.
“Uh . . . an adult? Someone older than you are, someone with more experience.” I turn and grin at her. “Oh, no. I’m not going. Don’t drag me into this.”
“Euphoria, you’re my only hope. Dad will never help me with this. He’ll think it’s stupid and dishonest and dangerous.”
“Which it is.”
“Yeah, I know.” I groan. “But it’s the only way I can see to keep everyone happy.” I flutter my eyes at her, putting on my biggest, baddest puppy peepers to get her to do what I want. “Please? Euphoria, you’re kind of like my other parent, you know.”
She sort of chokes up a little, which sounds like rusty metal filings grating on a tin roof, and if she had tear ducts, I think she’d have cried. “Oh, Shelby,” she says softly. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
I feel a little bit bad for manipulating her like that, but I ignore it and the feeling passes. I mean, it’s not like she can really get in trouble; she’s not a person, so I don’t think she can go to jail. And if I dress her up, I could probably pass her off as my old aunt Effie or something. Anyway, probably no one will stop me and so it won’t be an issue. But first, I have to get over the hurdle that is Dad.
I find him tinkering in his studio/lab/workshop in the converted garage. This is where I usually find him, if he’s not depressed and swinging on the front porch. No boring doorknobs for my dad; he has a door that swooshes open, like the ones in the old Star Trek. The room looks as if an auto shop, a factory, and Microsoft headquarters were sucked into a black hole and set back down in random order.
