Geek Girl

by Cindy C. Bennett

  “I’m that bad?” I interrupt her.

  She shrugs. “No biggie. You love him. Someday I hope that I love someone so much that I drive all my friends crazy with talking about him like that. But I still think that superficial or not, not even the great Trevor is going to notice you walking around looking like a bag lady.”

  “I don’t look—”

  She cuts me off. “Come on, let’s go get started on you.”

  “You act like there’s a long way to go,” I complain as she laughs, pulling me down the hallway into her bedroom. “You know, I thought you were an angel the first time I met you.”

  She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “I thought you were delusional when you kept telling me how perfect Trevor is, but now I know you’re delusional.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think that anymore,” I grumble as she pushes me down in front of her vanity and begins gently pulling a brush through my matted hair. She laughs her angel laugh and negates my words just like that.

  27. Change Doesn’t Always Make Sense

  I stand, staring at myself in the mirror. Jane has been in my room many times, and she has seen my collage of photos (which I masochistically keep up even though they are only a reminder of what I have lost), and so she has seen the way I used to look compared to the way I have looked since she met me.

  Somehow, she has managed to find that middle ground that I myself could never quite perfect, and she has transformed me.

  I thought I had found that middle ground, a happy-medium, but I was wrong. I had become a pale shade of the old me with plain brown hair without much shape to it, and conservative clothes. Now, after a trip to her hairdresser and a shopping trip funded with filched money from my college account, I can see me again.

  My hair is still dark brown—not quite black but almost—but with the lighter highlights it makes my eyes stand out. It’s shorter than I’ve had it, well, probably ever. The shoulder-length A-line cut softens the highlights, wispy bangs pulled down to the side completing the look, making the dark hair feminine. Jane did my makeup, and it looks edgy and soft all at the same time.

  Jeans with small holes shredded here and there, a long-sleeved black shirt with white cuffs and collar covered by one of my old red plaid vests, and black short boots with enough of a heel to be a little sexy but not too much completes Jane’s makeover of me.

  I feel good about this new look. The old me mixed with the new me. I smile at my image. I look good. I just might be able to make Trevor notice me once again.

  ⊕⊗⊕

  When I walk into school, I can feel the change. I’ve been a ghost for the last few months, but not anymore. People are seeing me now. I smile.

  Jane hurries over to me when she sees me, followed by her fan club

  “You look great,” she exclaims sincerely, a sentiment echoed by her gaggle of geese.

  “Patting yourself on the back?” I smirk.

  “How is that patting myself on the back?”

  “Because you made me. I am your creation, Dr. Frankenstein.”

  “He wasn’t a doctor, you know. Not in the book, anyway.”

  “Yeah, but he was in the movie that we watched, and that’s what matters.”

  “Whatever, Igor,” she laughs.

  “Igor was the assistant, not the experiment. I am the experiment.”

  “Igor also wasn’t in the book.” This is a new voice, one I didn’t expect to hear. My heart skips a beat as I turn to see Brian stepping toward me.

  I swallow guiltily. I’ve pretty much ignored Brian and all of Trevor’s other geek friends since hooking up with Jane. I can’t even try to claim that it’s because they didn’t want me around, not when they’ve gone out of their way to remain my friends in spite of what I’ve done to Trevor. Selfishly, it’s because hanging out with them only keeps in the front of my mind what I now have to live without.

  “He was in the movie though,” I say thickly.

  “Not if you’re talking the 1931 version, where he was called Fritz,” he argues lightly. I smile thinly, aware that everyone is staring at us as if we’re talking Chinese—except for my new sci-fi pal Jane. She is looking at Brian with interest.

  “You don’t talk to me anymore,” he accuses mildly.

  “We’ll see you later,” Jane interjects when his statement draws the attention of all the geese. She gives me a hug, then hurries away, followed by the rest of the group. Brian waits expectantly.

  “I know. I’m sorry. It just seems easier this way.”

  “Easier for who?” I’d almost forgotten just how honestly straightforward the geeks could be.

  “Me,” I admit. Brian’s eyes widen at my own frank answer. He nods in acknowledgment.

  “What you did to Trevor was . . . well, it wasn’t very nice.” I grunt at his mild assessment. “But it wasn’t the worst thing you could have done. I mean, I think you really did like him, right?”

  Like him? That doesn’t even begin to cover it. It turns the thing that meant the world to me into something . . . I don’t know . . . so middle school. But that’s not a discussion I want to get into in the school hallway with Brian. So I simply nod.

  “And I guess I thought maybe you really liked the rest of us also, or at least most of us.” We’re both thinking of Mary Ellen. “You weren’t, like, using us, were you?” He seems genuinely hurt by the idea.

  “Of course not. I mean, let’s be honest. At first, we were like oil and water. But I truly did come to think of you as friends.”

  He swings a hand vaguely in the direction that Jane has gone. “But now you don’t need us because you have new friends?”

  I shrug, looking away. “It’s too hard, Brian. You’re too close to him. There’re too many memories of him associated with you. And I’m a coward.”

  “You still like him, huh?”

  “I guess I always will.”

  “That’s good. I wouldn’t give up hope too quickly, Jen.” My heart thuds at his words. Does he know something? “But then, no one’s ever done anything like that to me, so I can’t say for sure how long he might stay mad.” And my heart drops. “But still, I wish you would at least talk to us a little.”

  I take a deep breath.

  “You’re right. I’m being selfish. So maybe on the days that . . . you know, that he’s not at lunch I could still sit with you? Me and Jane?”

  “You think she would sit at our table?” His eyes hold a little more than passing interest.

  I shrug, messing with Brian, feeling lighter at this feeble link to Trevor being offered. “I don’t know. I can try.”

  “Okay.” He sounds slightly despondent. “It’ll be good to talk to you again, anyway. See you around, Jen.”

  He walks off, and I can only stare after him. What an odd conversation. I have to admit, though, that I feel a little better now that he’s said he still wants to be friends. I feel a whole lot better that he thinks Trevor might forgive me someday.

  If there’s one thing life has taught me, though, it’s that hope can be a slippery slope.

  ⊕⊗⊕

  I see Trevor for the first time since Jane’s makeover of me later that day. He’s walking with the mouse, of all people. I almost turn and head a different direction, losing courage, but he looks up and sees me before I can make the move. He stops when he sees me, and Mary Ellen, who’d been in the middle of jabbering something inane (I’m sure) stops also, consternation knitting her brow. She follows his gaze and sees me there. Her eyes clear, and anger tightens her mouth.

  I ignore her because Trevor’s looking at me. I’m reminded of the stunned expression he had the first time I turned my unexpected charms on him. This gives me confidence, and I offer him a half smile, lifting my hand a few inches in a small wave. Trevor’s mouth begins to curve upward in response, but then he also seems to recall our first meeting, or maybe just the recent revelation made to him about me, and something in his expression changes. His mouth hardens and his eyes darken coldly.


  She notices the change in him, and she grins triumphantly. She pushes her arm through his and turns him away from me. It’s my nightmare, come true. I’m frozen in place, numb with hurt, and suddenly I feel foolish for having even tried. My clothes, my hair, my whole new look—ridiculous.

  Tears blur my vision, and for the first time since I’ve known Trevor, I leave school, ditching my classes, not even caring about the consequences.

  ⊕⊗⊕

  “You can’t give up!”

  Jane bounces on the edge of my bed while I lay curled in a ball, trying to resolutely ignore her. This is not an easy task.

  “You probably misconstrued his expression, anyway. You have the lowest self-esteem I’ve ever seen in a person,” Jane says, pushing against my stiff back.

  I sigh. She’s not going to let me ignore her, apparently. Though most times she’s as sweet as any true angel could be, she can also be as stubborn and persistent as any demon. I roll toward her and sit up.

  “I know Trevor pretty well,” I explain, exasperated. “I know his expressions better than I know my own. He was really angry.”

  “Okay. But before he was angry?” she prompts. “Did he look?”

  I guess my expression gives her the answer because she squeals triumphantly and gives me an exuberant hug.

  “I knew it! I knew he would look.”

  “Well, he couldn’t really help but look. I was right in front of him.”

  “But it is how he looked that matters.”

  “He looked delicious, as always,” I say. She smacks me on the shoulder.

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it. Tell me everything, every little detail.”

  I do, trying not to let her contagious enthusiasm affect me. She’s reading far more into this than I am. It’s nice to have someone fuming along with me over the audacity of the little mouse—who would probably be one of Jane’s close friends if I hadn’t infected her with disdain for Mary Ellen before she had a chance to befriend her.

  “He’s remembering,” she says.

  “What?” Her words bring me up short.

  “He’s remembering how it was when he first saw you, when you first turned your attention on him.”

  I want to argue, tell her she’s wrong, but I can’t. She’s right. I recognized it in his eyes, but I can’t afford hope, can’t afford the possibility that he will always hate me.

  Suddenly my mind floods with the memory of the dance, the first time I had made myself known to him. I had honed in on him, stalked him—made sure he knew that I was completely available to him. He had looked at me then the way he had looked at me today. He had been angry then too. Angry because I had made him look, made him notice me. He’d told me that later.

  Could that be why he had been angry today? Because once again I had made him look, made him notice me, whether he wanted to or not. Only this time it was with the knowledge of just how good things could be between us.

  I look at Jane with a soft gasp. She sees the change on my face, the recognition of the truth, and a slow feline smile—one that definitely doesn’t belong on her—widens her cherubic face.

  “So, tomorrow we start again?” she practically purrs.

  I smile, optimism filling me once again.

  “Tomorrow we start again.”

  28. Friends and Sisters—Sometimes Both at the Same Time

  The picture collage hanging in my room—the origins of which still remain a mystery that no one has owned up to—is something of a torment to me. It’s not the pictures of me and my new family; those make me happy. It’s all of the ones of me and Trevor, or me and Todd—even the one of me with Trevor and his parents. These are the ones that torment me, make me cry.

  Mom wanted to take them down when Trev and I first . . . I don’t even know exactly what to call it. Broke up? Separated? World collapsed? But I threw a big enough fit that she finally relented and agreed to let me keep them as long as it was “healthy” for me. This means I have to be really careful not to let her see me when I stand in front of them, staring at them, pretending like nothing happened and we’re still together.

  A knock on my door sends me scurrying quickly to my bed, belly flop down, legs up and crossed at the ankles and the magazine that had been sitting there quickly pulled up to my face as if this were my previous endeavor before I call out to invite Mom in.

  “A bet, huh?”

  I flip over at the sound of Tamara’s voice, surprised at how genuinely glad I am to see her. I grin at her, then quickly wipe it away.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in—a has-been cheerleader.”

  “But the best-looking has-been cheerleader on campus.” She walks in, eyes roving over the picture collage that I had been staring at. She waves a hand at them. “Into self-torture, are we?”

  “I already got the lecture from Mom. Don’t need it from you also.”

  She plops down onto the bed next to me, pulling the magazine out of my hands. It happens to be open to an advertisement page about a fabulous new feminine hygiene product, which helps you to feel your very freshest.

  “Does Mom fall for this I’m-just-fine-and-I’ll-prove-it-by-reading-about-maxi-pads?”

  I give her a dirty look, then stand up and walk away from her—but only to close my door. I turn back toward her, leaning back against the door with my hands tucked behind me.

  “Of course she does. She really wants me to be happy.”

  “Huh,” Tamara says, surprised.

  “What?”

  “There was no sarcasm in that sentence that I could detect.”

  “That’s because there wasn’t any. I know she truly wants me to be happy, and because she’s taken me in and given me a home and family, I’m going to give her what she wants.”

  “You know,” she says, closing the magazine and running her hand across its glossy surface, watching the movement, “when you first came here I resented you.”

  I laugh at this. “No kidding? I couldn’t tell.”

  She smiles back at me, shrugging.

  “I’m sorry I was so awful. But I didn’t really like the idea of another daughter. I guess I kind of felt like I was being replaced. And for it to be someone who so obviously didn’t want to be here . . .” She holds out a hand to me and pulls me to sit on the bed next to her when I take it. “But I am really happy that it is you. I like having you for my sister.”

  “Oh, great,” I say in loud exasperation. “I finally get my emotions under control and here you come, blowing them all up again.” I look at her and see tears in her eyes also. I lean my head down to her shoulder, letting the tears have their way, and she wraps an arm around me.

  “I had a boyfriend once who broke up with me because he found someone he liked better. It hurt.” She squeezes me. “But I didn’t love him the way that you love Trevor, so I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”

  “It’s so horrible,” I whisper. “I should have told him, as soon as I realized that I really liked him, when it changed from being a game to something more.”

  “Are you sorry?”

  I think about this for a minute, wiping my nose with the tissue she hands to me. I sit up and look at her.

  “No, I’m not.” Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “It sounds bad, I guess. But I can’t be sorry for the thing that put me and Trevor together. I’m only sorry that now he hates me.”

  “Hate is a pretty strong emotion. And one I don’t think Trevor Hoffman is capable of.”

  “Strongly dislikes me, then.”

  “So what are you doing about it?”

  “Have you been talking to Jane?” I accuse.

  “Ah, the famous Jane. Mom raves about her every time I call. So what does this mysterious, magical Jane have to say?”

  “She did the Jen makeover.”

  “She did a good job. You look really good. Even with the runny mascara,” she teases, wiping a finger beneath one eye.

  “Thanks, but I’m still no cheerleader.�
�

  “Well, we can’t all be perfect.”

  If only a few months ago anyone had told me I would be joking around with my sister, the cheerleader, I probably would have laughed—and not in the ha-ha, that’s funny way but more like the yeah-right-that-isn’t-happening-in-this-lifetime way. Guess you never can say never.

  “She says I have to make him notice me again, make him want me back.”

  “Hmm, well, she’s on the right path. But Jen, Trevor’s about more than looks. I mean, he was with you when you looked like the queen of the living dead.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter.

  “I couldn’t even turn his head then. Proof he’s not about looks.”

  Tamara is being facetious, and I laugh at her. She’s so not what I had thought her to be when I first came to this house.

  “You need to remind him of the other reasons he wanted to be with you.”

  “But that’s the thing. There really aren’t any good reasons. Why was he with me?”

  Tamara shakes her head.

  “You have got to work on your self-esteem.”

  “You’re the second one to tell me that.”

  “Then it must be true. Listen, Jen. You’ve spent your life being told you’re worthless by a bunch of people whose opinions shouldn’t matter. Time to stop listening to them and start listening to people who actually love you.”

  “Yeah, well, easier said than done, you know?”

  “Don’t keep acting like your life is over. It’s pathetic and won’t help you in your campaign. Be happy, show him that you’re happy and you don’t need him. Flirt with some other boys. Show him you’re not just waiting around for him. That’ll get his attention.” She gives me another one-armed hug and stands up. “If Trevor is half as nice as I think he is, he’ll forgive you. Then he’ll be begging you to take him back.”

  “Thanks, Tamara. Who knew a cheerleader could be so helpful? I actually feel a little better now.”

  She smiles at me. “What’re sisters for?”