This Girl Isn't Shy, She's Spectacular

by Nina Beck

  Samantha, not for the first time, wanted to bow out of the whole thing, but something (and it was D, she knew it) kept her from calling the whole thing off. Instead she decided that she would stick it out. I mean, what was the worst thing that could happen? Three dates, and then a date for the dance…how bad could it be?

  D TRIES TO KEEP SAM FROM GETTING BUSY

  It was Thursday evening and D was sitting in Riley’s living room, where her stepmother was passing out drinks to everyone. D took a sip of his and made a horrible face.

  “Too sour?” Riley asked.

  “What is this?”

  “Lemonade,” Riley answered, Marley and Brendan looking on.

  “Virgin?”

  “D’s not used to virgins, Riley,” Marley said from the opposite side of the room, where she had plopped herself into one of the large striped chairs. Brendan was sitting on the Oriental rug, his legs crossed underneath him while he pulled organic snacks that his mother had packed for him out of his bag, stuffing them unceremoniously into his mouth while he chuckled, spewing small bits of crumbs all over the front of his shirt.

  D glared at Marley, who didn’t even look up from the magazine she was flipping through.

  Ever since last year, when Marley broke up with her boyfriend, she had been acting like such a bitch. It wasn’t D’s fault that he had encouraged her boyfriend to dump Marley, using the irrefutable logic “You’re only young once, right?” And Marley’s boyfriend dumped her to go make out with some freshman girls and ever since…well, whatever “friendship” Marley and D might have been acting like they had, had considerably cooled.

  “Come on, guys,” Riley said. “Sam is going to be here any moment and we all have to come together.”

  D sat down on the couch opposite of Marley and looked over his shoulder at Riley standing behind them. He held the lemonade gingerly in his hand, waiting for someone (anyone) else to take a sip so he could see if they thought it tasted funny too. It had been a long time since he had lemonade, but…was it supposed to taste like carburetor fluid?

  The doorbell rang and Riley ran to fetch Samantha, and when Sam walked in, she was carrying a purse in one hand and lemonade in the other. Attack of the hospitable stepmother.

  “Hey, guys,” she said, looking around for a place to set her drink or her bag. She found neither and then awkwardly juggled them for a second before D stood, crossing to her, and held her drink for her. She shot him a grateful look and was able, with one hand, to take off her light coat and throw it over the back of a chair.

  “You look nice, Sam,” Riley said.

  D thought she looked better than nice. She had left her hair down and hadn’t overdone the makeup, and she was wearing a simple black skirt that cut right around her knees—and a tight black shirt that showed off her curves. And what curves they were.

  D turned away and took a big sip of his lemonade, his eyes watering as he tried to swallow it.

  “Thanks,” he heard Sam say from behind him. He had to bite the inside of his cheek and swallow really, really slowly to keep from gagging. He looked around; nobody else had taken a sip of their lemonade. Maybe this was a big trick—he looked around for cameras.

  “So, are you ready for your first date, Sam?” Marley called out from the chair.

  “Um, this isn’t my first date, Marley.”

  “Whatever,” she said, waving Samantha’s answer off with her hand—the same way one would to a bug that was buzzing around your head.

  “Oh, this is going to be so much fun!” Brendan sighed. “And you look beautiful. Are you going to kiss him good night?”

  D waited for the answer.

  “Um, I think I’d like to figure out who I am going out with before I figure out if there is going to be a good-night kiss,” Sam said slowly, as if speaking to a small child. And judging from the way Brendan’s face looked to D, he thought that the approximation was about right. Brendan pouted. Brendan was, after all, a romantic.

  “So, are you going to tell me who my first date is?”

  “Absolutely,” Riley said, pulling out her folder. D wondered if she had started carrying that thing around with her everywhere, because the outside had phone numbers, homework assignments, and a shopping list written on it. It looked like it had been “the only thing on hand” during a few points where Riley had needed to remember something.

  Riley pulled out her iPhone and read the name off:

  “Joshua Cole.”

  “Wow, that’s great,” Samantha said, clearly not knowing who Joshua Cole was. D smiled. Joshua Cole was one of his favorites—if by favorites you could mean that Joshua Cole was one of the most obnoxious, most pretentious jerks in the entire school. But he hadn’t dated Marley (or Brendan), and Riley didn’t know him, so D was able to give him a big thumbs-up that the others couldn’t deny.

  D almost felt bad for a second—he figured that he had ensured that Samantha would be having an absolutely crappy date. And then when he, D, asked her out, she’d be so happy to have a date with someone normal that she’d say yes and never even think of going out with anyone else.

  And it wasn’t like he wasn’t punishing himself at the same time: He would be spending the next two and a half hours sitting at Riley’s house with Marley and Brendan, while Samantha was on a date. Even with a kid like Joshua, it was still a date, and D had to tell himself to consciously relax lest he get overexcited and tip off the others to what his real game was.

  Riley guided Samantha to a love seat that had been pulled away from its usual place by the wall and sat her down, patting her shoulders as she did so.

  “He’ll be here in five minutes and then I can formally introduce you.” Riley smiled and Samantha cringed.

  Four minutes and twenty-three seconds later, the doorbell rang again, and another fifteen seconds after that, Riley returned to the living room with a boy in tow.

  D sized up Joshua Cole as he walked in. He looked normal enough. He was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a sweater that D would swear was stolen off the set of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. But otherwise, he looked like an average teenage guy—which was a key part of the plan, so nobody else would be questioning his initial decision—but D knew that the minute he started talking…then it would get interesting.

  Riley smiled at Joshua and then at Samantha, waggling her eyebrows and rolling her eyes in Joshua’s direction. Joshua turned to Samantha on the love seat and his smile broadened. He walked over to her and shook her hand, kissing her on the cheek and presenting her with a flower.

  “At least it isn’t a rose,” Marley mumbled. It was an orchid. A wilting one.

  Riley sighed as Samantha said thank you and Joshua nodded. D laughed, in spite of himself: Joshua wasn’t talking. Nobody had noticed either. But Joshua hadn’t said a word since he got there. This was going to be so great.

  “OK, let’s get the formalities out of the way so that the two of you kids can go out and enjoy your date!” Riley said. “First of all, I’d like you to both observe some rules: There will be no physical interaction beyond first base.” (D could see Sam turn bright red, but this was his addition to the rules and he thought it was and should be mandatory.) “You will have her back here by eight forty-five exactly, and you will pay for everything.” (This had been Riley’s stipulation, as she still believed if they were going dutch they might as well be going to different places.)

  They both nodded, although Sam looked like she wanted to burst into tears.

  “Great!” Riley said. “Brendan will now introduce you to your date.”

  Brendan jumped up, smiling at the both of them, and took the sheet of paper from Riley’s hands. “Hi, guys. I’m Brendan.” (He didn’t need to introduce himself; everyone knew who he was.) “Hi.” (He waved at everyone in the room.) “So, like, this is so great. And I’m so glad everyone is here. And I think this is great.”

  He smiled again. D wanted to hit him.

  “Anyway,” he said, crisping the paper in his hands. “
Um, meet Samantha Owens.” (He waved a little at Sam, D groaned, Sam smiled and waved back.) “Sam is a seventeen-year-old senior. She likes reading and tortoises. She has a younger brother and recently moved back to Manhattan from her boarding school.” He paused, read it over again to himself, and then nodded. And then said, “Hi, Sam.”

  “Um, hi, Brendan.”

  Then Brendan flipped over the page, and it was all D could do to keep from laughing. “Joshua Cole is really interested in business management. His parents promised him a new car if he gets an eight hundred on the verbal portion of the SATs next month. He really wants this car.” Brendan flipped the page over, and over again, and then, deciding there was nothing more to read, looked up and said, “Um, hi, Joshua.”

  Joshua nodded and looked around. Still no speaking. It was all D could do to keep from laughing.

  Sam, in order to avoid the rest of what was happening, took a deep sip of her lemonade and, half a second later, her face froze and she began coughing. There was much coughing.

  “Ugh, what is this?” she asked.

  “I know, right?” D asked.

  Marley looked at them both, took a long sip, and then went back to her magazine. Riley looked at both D and Sam in a chiding manner and then realized that she wanted to finish things fast, before they completely fell apart, and pushed both Sam and Joshua out of the room before another word was spoken.

  “Have fun, you two!” she called out.

  After she had shut the door behind them, she sat looking quizzically at the others.

  Marley stood up and grabbed the application. “Amo…amas…What the hell?! Is this English?”

  “Marley,” Riley said, ripping the application out of her hand, “it’s Latin.”

  “He wrote his application in Latin? What, why?” Marley asked.

  “From what I can tell, his parents thought Latin classes would help him excel on the SATs and, if his application is to be believed, if he takes these classes seriously and scores above a seven hundred, they are going to buy him a new car,” Riley said. “Or a pig.”

  “Huh?”

  “I had to type the entire application into the Latin-English translator. Some of it wasn’t exactly directly translatable.” She put the application back in her folder. What D wouldn’t give for five minutes with that folder.

  “So, how is Sam supposed to talk to him if he is only speaking in Latin?” Brendan asked.

  “I don’t think he’s only speaking in Latin, Brendan.”

  And if he was? Riley must’ve sensed Brendan’s unuttered question because she quickly finished with: “Just think of it like a date with a foreign exchange student. They can use body language. I once went out with Val, the foreign exchange student from freshman year, and we had so much in common even though we couldn’t understand one word the other one was saying.”

  “She shouldn’t have to use body language, he speaks ENGLISH,” Marley said. “Whose date idea was this anyway?”

  “Er…” D said.

  “It was D’s,” Riley said, checking the paperwork.

  “I think it’ll be good for her to broaden her dating horizons,” he said, willing everyone to drop it. Riley looked at him with a very suspicious look on her face. D tried to smile as charmingly as possible. Two hours and fourteen minutes left until Sam was back. D tried to stifle his smile. It couldn’t come too soon—probably for either of them.

  #9 LEARN TO SPEAK AN EXOTIC NEW LANGUAGE AND VISIT AN EXOTIC NEW PLACE

  Samantha did not think there was going to be a second date with Joshua Cole. She was pretty sure he felt the same way.

  It started when they got into the cab. He held the door, which was a nice touch, but then they only drove two blocks. They couldn’t have walked two blocks? Sam tried to ask Joshua about it, but when he didn’t know enough Latin to answer properly, he would shake his head violently and shoot her really pissed-off glares.

  Sam finally asked, “So…what’s with the Latin?”

  Joshua took a beaten-up index card out of his back pocket and handed it to her. Sam looked at it, trying to decipher the extremely small print.

  “You get a scar if you get a perfect score?”

  He shook his head and pantomimed.

  “Oh, a car,” she said, nodding slowly. “I don’t get it. Do you really need a car in Manhattan?”

  He did not look pleased. Instead of answering (in Latin or otherwise), he simply ripped the card from her hands and looked out the window, sulking.

  They got out of the cab and Josh walked her to the front door: not to a restaurant or even a movie theater, but to his apartment. She knew so, because the doorman greeted him by name and looked at her like she was crazy for following Josh “Latin Boy” Cole up to his den of darkness.

  Sam, obviously, felt the same way.

  Sam did not feel like she was on a date with a foreign exchange student. She felt like she was on a date with an idiot. And she was in the idiot’s apartment and, from the looks of it, about to have dinner with the idiot’s parents.

  Sam walked into a poorly lit apartment that would have made Riley cry. The space wasn’t very small, but all the furniture was so huge that it obscured any sense of scale in the space. The walls were all painted dark colors, which added to the smallness of it all, and Sam was pretty sure that if she would ever have an attack of claustrophobia, this would be the time for it to happen.

  The entire apartment reminded her of her old Nana’s basement. It even smelled about the same.

  Despite that, she tried to keep an open mind as Joshua introduced her to his parents (at least that’s what she thought he did). Sam thought it was a bit early to be meeting the parents, but for all she knew, Joshua always had his parents join in on a first date. It’s not like she could ask him (or understand his answer, rather).

  His parents were both lawyers, who spent the majority of the meal e-mailing each other across the table, things that they both thought were amusing. Joshua kept his eyes on his plate.

  When either addressed Samantha, from the other side of a rather long wooden table that sat impressively (and alone) in a long room that if it had been any narrower would’ve been a hallway, they did so in short, clipped sentences—often referring to each other as “Joshua’s father” or “Joshua’s mother.”

  “Would you like some more peas, Samantha? I can have Joshua’s mother pass them to you.”

  It was awkward. It was more than awkward, it was terrifying. Samantha wanted to go home. When dinner was over, both of Joshua’s parents got up from the table without a farewell and a cook brought out two puddings that were placed in front of both of the kids.

  “Vis efficere?”1 he asked.

  “No, thank you,” Samantha said, looking at her bowl. “This is quite enough.”

  She couldn’t understand why Joshua pouted through dessert; it was quite delicious.

  Joshua tried to make conversation, but it was really hard to follow—it being a dead language and all. But she tried to remember a few bits that she could look up later.

  Like when she asked what he wanted to do, and he responded with “Fallit me.”2 Or when he tried to put his hand on her leg under the table and she pushed him firmly away and his only response (after rolling his eyes) was: “Id faciunt omnes.”3

  When she finally got tired of trying to figure out what he was saying through reading his body language (which only went from being standoffish to outright pouting), Sam finally yelled, “Can you just stop talking in Latin?”

  “Vah! Denoune Latine loquor? Me ineptus—interdum modo abit.”4

  She spent the rest of their “date” watching television with Joshua’s mother while Josh pouted in his room, where she was pretty sure she sneaked a peek of him playing World of Warcraft on his PC.

  When it was time for him to bring her back to Riley’s, he stepped out of the building and went to hail a cab.

  “Um, couldn’t we just walk? It’s, like, two blocks,” Sam asked, pointing down the street.
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br />   Joshua rolled his eyes and shrugged, following her slowly down the sidewalk. When they were standing on Riley’s stoop, and Samantha was sure she felt someone looking out the window at them (Riley), she said in as friendly a manner as she could, “It was really nice getting to know you and your family, Joshua. I hope you do very well on your SATs.”

  Joshua responded, “Noli me vocare, ego te vocabo.”5

  She smiled and Joshua hailed a cab going back up the street (two blocks) and once he seemed a safe enough distance away, Samantha was buzzed into the building. When she went to ring Riley’s doorbell, the door was ripped open before her finger really even had a chance to touch the button.

  “How was it?” Riley cried. D stood next to her, looking Sam up and down as if waiting for a reaction.

  “Can I at least keep my humiliation to myself until I get inside?” she asked, pushing past Riley and walking into the living room where the other two waited patiently. She thought she saw a knowing look on D’s face, but when she glanced back, it was gone and she figured she imagined the whole thing.

  So Samantha told them all about the date, including the Latin she could remember (which Brendan Googled on his iPhone, while mumbling that he knew he should’ve gotten that Latin translator application), and all in all they were all very disappointed by Samantha’s first date.

  “Well, I hope you didn’t sleep with him,” Marley said.

  “Of course not, his parents were there,” Brendan said, turning around to look at Marley.

  “So?” she asked.

  “Eh. I’m not sleeping with any boy who can’t even hold a conversation with me!” Samantha said, and the minute she did, she saw D physically tense up. Good, she thought.

  Riley nodded. “Samantha’s right! The next boy should be eloquent and well versed in the art of communicating his feelings. In En glish.”