Geek Abroad

by Piper Banks

  I opened my eyes and saw that he’d leaned back a bit, his expression unfathomable. For a moment, I worried that he’d known I’d been faking the kiss. But when he smiled, I knew he hadn’t guessed.

  “Happy New Year, Miranda,” Henry said.

  “Happy New Year,” I said.

  Chapter 8

  I flew home three days later. I saw Henry twice more before I left. On New Year’s Day, we went to Henry’s favorite curry house. The restaurant had dark red carpeting and flocked wall paper, and the tables and chairs were rickety, but the food was fabulous. Since I didn’t have much experience with Indian cuisine, I let Henry do all the ordering. Everything was delicious, from the spicy lamb to the cream-sauced chicken to the huge, soft, doughy rounds of flat bread called naan.

  The next day I was packing, and Sadie surprised me with tickets for the West End production of Phantom of the Opera, which I’d always wanted to see. We were going to go out for dinner before the theater to a restaurant called the Ivy. Sadie gleefully informed me that it’s where all the movie stars went when they were in town, and so maybe we’d end up eating dinner next to George Clooney.

  Henry stopped by in the afternoon. I took a break from my packing, and Henry and I went for a walk through Hyde Park. It was cold and the wind was biting, but we didn’t really notice. We talked easily, as we had from the beginning, about everything and nothing. We played Henry’s Top Three game, and complained good-naturedly about our parents, and as we passed by the Peter Pan statue, Henry took my hand in his. Our hands fit well together, I noticed.

  “You’ll come visit again,” Henry said.

  “I think so. I guess it depends on how long Sadie stays here,” I said. “Maybe you could come visit me, too.”

  “I’ve always wanted to go to Florida,” Henry said.

  “I’ll take you to Disney World,” I said. “It’s only a few hours away from where I live.”

  Henry looked amused. “Aren’t we too old for Disney World?”

  “You’re never too old for Disney World.”

  “Okay. It’s a deal, then.”

  He squeezed my hand in his, and I felt a thrill of happiness. True, Henry didn’t have the same breathless effect on me that Dex had. . . . But I truly liked Henry. And I had a feeling that the more time I spent with him, the more I’d like him. Besides, he was nice to me, which was more than I could say for Dex, who’d gone off with another girl as soon as I’d left town.

  “What’s wrong?” Henry asked, breaking in on these dark thoughts.

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “You were frowning,” he said. He grinned and swung our arms between us. “When you frown, you get two little lines right here over the bridge of your nose.” Henry pointed to the space on his own face to demonstrate.

  “I just wish I wasn’t leaving so soon,” I said, which was half-true. I really didn’t want to go back to my life in Orange Cove, constantly hoping I wouldn’t run into Dex out and about with his new girlfriend.

  And then there was my forced cohabitation with my dad, Peyton, and Hannah. Peyton and I hadn’t ever really gotten along, and I guessed it was going to be even worse now. Even though I’d begged her not to, Sadie had called my dad on Christmas Day. She was angry that Peyton had called me odd, and that Dad had let her do it, and that I’d overhead the whole thing. The fact that I’d been eavesdropping at the time hadn’t mattered to my mom.

  “Children eavesdrop,” Sadie had said definitively. “As your father and that woman are well aware of. Or, at least, they should be.”

  Sadie had shut me out of her office while she called the States. I tried to listen at the door—clearly, I hadn’t learned my lesson on eavesdropping—but I couldn’t hear anything. Sadie’s voice was a low, angry hum, and I could only make out every few words of what she was saying: “. . . Should not have happened . . . difficult age . . . low self-esteem . . . not helping.”

  Later, Sadie told me that my dad was concerned and that he planned to talk to Peyton about it, and then they’d both work harder to make me feel welcomed in their home. Which meant that Peyton would probably just hate me that much more and continue to shoot icy glares at me. I shivered at the thought.

  “Cold?” Henry asked, jolting me into the present.

  “No, I’m okay. I’m just bummed that I’m leaving.”

  “Me too,” Henry said. “We’ll keep in touch, though. I have your e-mail address.”

  This, too, reminded me of Dex, and his broken promise to e-mail me. But this time I stopped myself before I frowned.

  “Yes. I’ll write you, too,” I said.

  “Promise?” Henry asked. He stopped then, and I turned to face him. We were standing next to a pond, where cold-looking ducks were paddling around, trolling for crumbs.

  “I promise,” I said.

  This time, when Henry leaned over to kiss me, all other thoughts flew from my mind.

  “You have your passport?” Sadie asked for the ten millionth time, as she walked me through the airport toward the security check-in.

  Even though I knew I had it—I’d just given it to the Virgin Airlines employee when I checked in for my flight, and distinctly remembered zipping it back in the pocket of my backpack—I patted my bag to make sure it was there.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “How about money? Do you have enough pocket money?” Sadie continued.

  “I think so. I won’t need much, right? Dad’s going to meet my plane in Orlando,” I said.

  “Even so, you may want to buy some chocolate or a magazine or something while you’re waiting. Here, take twenty pounds. No, that’s not enough. Take forty,” Sadie said, pressing crumpled pound notes at me.

  “This is too much,” I said, trying to give her back one of the twenties, but Sadie waved me off.

  “Take it. Just in case,” she said.

  “Okay. Thanks,” I said, pocketing colorful bills. British money was so much prettier than American bills.

  “What else? Do you have anything to read? Did you remember to pack your new laptop? And all of your other presents?”

  “For the last time, yes, yes, and yes,” I said, sounding more grumpy than I felt to hide my sadness at saying good-bye. We’d reached the security checkpoint, where people were lined up to go through metal detectors and have their bags searched. I felt guilty for snapping, so I put my free arm around Sadie to give her a quick hug. “I had a really good time.”

  Sadie hugged me back, squeezing me against her. “I did, too, darling. I wish you didn’t have to leave,” she said. She leaned back to look at me, and I noticed that she, too, had parallel lines appear between her eyebrows when she frowned. I guess I inherited that from her. “Maybe we should have looked into having you stay here for the semester.”

  “What about school?” I asked.

  “Well, there’s that. Maybe . . . I don’t know. It’s probably too late,” she said.

  “I guess,” I said, wishing that it wasn’t, wishing that I could stay. “School starts the day after tomorrow, though. And there’s Willow.”

  Dad was taking care of my greyhound, Willow, while I was gone. I knew Dad liked Willow and would take good care of her. But my stepmother, Peyton, hated all dogs, and Willow in particular. I just hoped she hadn’t “accidentally” let Willow out in my absence. Willow was sweet and gentle, but she had no sense of direction, and would easily get lost.

  “Give Willow a kiss for me,” Sadie said. She hugged me again, as though she didn’t want to let me go. “Why don’t you think about spending the summer here?”

  “Are you going to still be here then?” I asked.

  “I might be. The book’s going slower than I thought, what with all of the publicity I’ve been doing for the British release of The Gentleman Pirate.” Sadie’s expression suddenly turned sly. “Just think: If you come for the summer, you’ll be able to see Henry again.”

  I blushed. I hadn’t told Sadie about Henry kissing me, obviously, but she’d guessed that ou
r friendship had deepened into a budding romance.

  “I should go. They’re going to be boarding my flight soon,” I said.

  “Okay. Come give me one last hug. I’m going to miss you so much.”

  My mom enfolded me into her arms one last time. I could feel my throat closing, and tears stinging my eyes.

  “I’ll miss you, too,” I croaked.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, darling. You’re going to be just fine,” Sadie said.

  I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the flight or about life in the larger sense. I had a feeling it was the latter.

  I hoped she was right.

  Chapter 9

  My dad was waiting for me just outside of the international gateway at the Orlando airport. He was very tall, with thinning, dark straight hair, the too-big nose I’d unfortunately inherited from him, and brown eyes that squinted when he smiled. He waved cheerily to me, and I lurched toward him, staggering under the weight of my carry-on. The flight home had seemed longer than the flight over, and my legs were stiff from sitting.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said. I’d been a little worried about seeing my dad after Sadie had bawled him out. But he didn’t seem angry. . . . Just happy to see me. Which made me feel a little guilty for tattling on him.

  I couldn’t seem to find my footing with my dad. He’d all but disappeared from my life for three years after he and Sadie got divorced. During that time, he met and married Peyton, a mouthwash heiress, and they’d moved into a big modern mansion on the beach. I’d seen him for the occasional Saturday-night dinner, but it was always awkward.

  But then Sadie had moved to London while she wrote her new book, and I’d had no choice but to move into the beach house with Dad, Peyton, and Peyton’s daughter, Hannah, who was my age. I had to give my dad credit; he’d been working hard trying to rebuild his relationship with me. I appreciated the effort. . . . Although sometimes it felt like it was all coming a little too late.

  “Hi, honey,” Dad now said, taking the bag off my shoulder. He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “How was your flight?”

  “Very, very long,” I said. My stomach rumbled so loudly, my dad could hear it over the airport din.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m starving. The food on board was awful. They actually served fish for dinner. Who wants to eat fish on an airplane?”

  “I certainly wouldn’t.” My dad glanced around. “Do you want to run into the newsstand and get a candy bar or something?”

  “I was sort of hoping we could get an early dinner,” I said. It was only four in the afternoon, but Orange Cove was more than an hour away. I glanced around and spotted a little restaurant just past the newsstand. Airport food wasn’t much better than airplane food, but I was too hungry to be picky. “Do you mind if I grab a burger?”

  “Well . . . the thing is, your sister and stepmother are waiting in the car,” Dad said.

  “Stepsister,” I corrected him automatically. “They drove down with you?”

  “No. Hannah flew in today, too. She was in New York visiting her dad.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I didn’t tell my dad that Hannah and I had exchanged e-mails over the break. He had this whole fantasy that Hannah and I would become as close as sisters. I didn’t need to add the weight of his unrealistic expectations onto our fragile, not-yet-gelled friendship. “When did she get in?”

  “About two hours ago,” my dad said nonchalantly.

  I had a bad feeling about this. “So you’ve been waiting for me all this time?” I asked.

  Here’s the thing: Not only does Peyton hate me, she also hates to wait. For anything. Ever. So having to wait for two hours in an airport for me to arrive back home? That was probably Peyton’s idea of hell. And she isn’t exactly sweet-natured normally. I could only imagine how pissy she was going to be.

  My dad hesitated just long enough to confirm my worries. Peyton’s also not big on the silent-suffering thing. If she was mad, she would make the fact well known to all.

  “So I guess no burger,” I said, resigning myself to another hour of hunger.

  “Sorry, kiddo,” my dad said. And he really did look sorry. “Come on. Let’s grab some snacks for the ride home.”

  My dad shouldered my bag, and we headed into the newsstand. I picked out a package of peanut butter crackers, a Kit-Kat, a bag of cashews, and a bottle of water. Once my dad paid for the snacks, we made our way to the baggage carousel, which was slowly spitting out the suitcases from my flight.

  “Don’t you have to take your bag through customs?” Dad asked.

  “I already did. We got our baggage down by the international arrival gate, then walked them through customs, and then they took them back from us so that we could collect them down here,” I said.

  “No wonder it took you so long to get out of there,” Dad said.

  “Yeah, it was pretty much an exercise in bureaucratic time wasting,” I said. “Although they did take down one woman who had a banana in her purse. The sniffer dog nabbed her.”

  “The nefarious international banana plot,” Dad said.

  I was glad my dad was in a jokey mood. It meant that he really wasn’t angry at me. I relaxed, the knots in my stomach unraveling.

  We finally were able to claim my suitcase, seemingly the last one to be tossed onto the conveyer belt, and headed for the walkway that bridged over to the parking garage.

  “Peyton and Hannah are parked over there,” Dad said, nodding to our right when we finally reached the garage. Peyton’s enormous white Cadillac SUV was parked in a handicapped spot.

  I felt a dropping sense of dread in my stomach, but followed my dad over to the SUV. He opened the back to put my bag in, and almost instantly, the cacophony of shrieking could be heard.

  “Richard! What on earth took you so long?” Peyton screeched.

  “This is ridiculous! I have a date tonight! I’m not going to have any time to get ready!” Hannah fumed.

  “I’ve never had to wait so long in my life!” Peyton continued.

  “Why did we all have to drive in the same car?” Hannah asked.

  Wordlessly, Dad heaved the suitcase inside and then shut the back door. He turned to look at me.

  “I think they’re a little upset,” he said.

  “A little?” I asked. I glanced around, looking for an escape. “Maybe I should find a nice serial killer who will let me hitchhike back home with him.”

  “Come on. They’ll calm down,” Dad said.

  He opened the driver’s-side rear door for me, and I climbed up onto the smooth caramel leather seat next to Hannah. She had her arms crossed, and was puffing with indignation.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to sound cheery.

  “Hey,” Hannah said irritably.

  “Miranda. What. Took. You. So. Long?” Peyton hissed, turning around in the passenger seat to glare at me through her tinted sunglasses. Peyton was very thin, very pale, and had very short, white blond hair.

  “Believe it or not, I wasn’t actually flying the plane. I didn’t exactly have a lot of control over our arrival time,” I said.

  Peyton opened her mouth again, presumably to start screaming some more, but Dad cut her off. He swung into the driver’s seat and said mildly, “Peyton, honey, don’t yell at Miranda. It’s not her fault that her flight got in late.”

  “We’ve been waiting here for hours!” Peyton said.

  “I have to pee,” Hannah announced.

  “Why didn’t you go before?” Dad asked her.

  “Don’t you take that tone with her,” Peyton snapped.

  “I wasn’t using a tone. I just don’t understand why she didn’t use the facilities while you were waiting,” Dad said, reasonably enough.

  “I didn’t have to go then,” Hannah said, opening her door. “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick.”

  But since Hannah has never made a quick trip to the bathroom in her life—she can’t help gazing at her lovely reflection in the mirror whil
e reapplying her lip gloss or smoothing back her long, shiny golden blond hair—we ended up waiting for what did seem a ridiculously long time. It was made even longer by my Dad and Peyton’s increasing irritability with one another.

  “If I had known this was going to take all afternoon, I would have hired a limo service to pick Hannah up,” Peyton said accusingly.

  “You’re the one who insisted we drive down together,” Dad replied.

  “It’s not my fault I don’t like driving on the highway,” Peyton replied, her voice growing increasingly shrill.

  Dad shrugged. “I told you that Miranda’s flight was getting in later than Hannah’s. That there was a good chance she’d get delayed going through customs.”

  “Why’s that? Did they stop her?” Peyton swiveled around and fixed me with a beady look. “Did you try to smuggle something in?”

  “No!” I said. “What do you think I’d be smuggling, anyway?”

  “There was that story on Dateline a few months ago about how drug dealers use plain-looking girls to act as mules. They’re not stopped as often going through customs,” Peyton said. Her eyes narrowed as she stared suspiciously at me.

  “Peyton!” Dad exploded.

  “You think I’m a drug smuggler?” I asked mildly. I was more surprised than angry. The idea was so ludicrous.

  “Who’s a drug smuggler?” Hannah asked, climbing back into the SUV.

  “No one,” Dad said emphatically.

  “Your mom thinks I am,” I said.

  Hannah snorted. “Yeah, right. Like someone like you would ever do something like that.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Wait . . . what do you mean, someone like me?”

  “Well, no offense, Miranda, but you’re kind of a Goody Two-shoes,” Hannah said.

  I have a theory that whenever someone starts off a sentence by saying No offense, whatever follows after is pretty much guaranteed to be offensive.

  “I am not,” I said indignantly, even though I really am, sort of. I mean, it’s not that I try to be a Goody Two-shoes. . . . More that I’m just not very good at getting into trouble. None of my friends are into drugs, I don’t like the taste of beer, and smoking cigarettes just seems like a really dumb habit to take up. But Goody Two-shoes seemed unnecessarily pejorative. Besides, who even said that anymore?