Tall, short, and occasionally pretty people droned nonsense on the tiny screen. Montgomery found herself losing interest almost immediately.
“Hang on, this is an important bit,” Mica said, with the tiniest bit of an affected British accent. But he did it without thinking, so it was almost excusable.
“What? They going to get on miniature ponies and ride off into the sunset?” the cheerleader asked, pulling out a book and blowing dust off it.
“No, they’re—come on, this is serious.” He didn’t turn his head from the TV, his lips slightly parted around his surprisingly cute, slightly bucky front teeth. His dirty blond hair was tousled into his eyes—but unlike she’d assumed, it wasn’t actually dirty. It might even have had some gel or something in it.
“This is no mere ranger. He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. You owe him your allegiance….”
The serious one, blondie with the ears, the elf, was getting all self-important. She remembered that from the first time her boyfriend made her watch it. It would continue like this for the next two movies.
“Ugh, would you listen to them?” Montgomery sighed, rolling her eyes and shoving the book back onto the shelf. It had looked intriguing at first, but none of the characters mentioned on the back had any vowels in their names; only a lot of ws and ys and far too many double ls. “It’s ridiculous the way they talk!”
“It’s supposed to be epic and therefore archaic,” Mica explained patiently. But there was an edge to his voice. “Like…well, you take French. Think of the formality of their speech like vouvoiement versus tutoiement.”
“I didn’t know you took French,” Montgomery said, impressed. “Wait, you’re not in my or Shaniqa’s class….”
“I take French Five with the seniors,” the boy said dismissively. Not bragging. Like he wanted to get over it and back to the subject at hand. He pressed play. “Anyway, think of it as trying to sound like an English version of romantic, archaic French.”
“It sounds retarded,” she said tartly.
“Montgomery.” Mica was the very picture of barely controlled exasperation. “Not only are you paying us to show things like this to you and explain them to you, but this—this movie, is one of my Favorite. Things. In. The. World. If you don’t like it, could you at least keep the comments to yourself? How would you like it if I made fun of…”
He paused. He could have suggested any one of a thousand nasty things, from nighttime soaps to the worst sort of trashy romances.
But he didn’t.
“…whatever it is you like?”
They locked eyes for a moment. She bit her lip.
Whenever it was her turn to watch something she liked, Ryan wouldn’t stop making awful comments. Like the reality show where young designers had to sew things quickly. She didn’t even bother trying to watch it with him anymore. Hence the noir after noir after noir…
“Sorry,” she finally said. Grudgingly. She flopped down on his bed.
“Why are you doing this, anyway? I don’t really get it,” Mica admitted, crossing his legs and relaxing a little.
“Ryan likes all of this sort of…stuff,” she said as she waved her hand around. “I mean, a little. Not like you guys like it. And I don’t get it at all. I thought maybe if I did, I would get him more. I really like him, you know.”
“That’s…” Mica thought carefully. “Kind of generous.”
“Um, yeah,” Montgomery said, picking at his Star Wars quilt.
The obvious question was finally spoken.
“Is he doing the same thing for you?” Mica finally asked.
“What is this, Geek 101 or the Dr. Phil show?” the cheerleader snapped. “When I want relationship advice, trust me, I won’t be paying the dysfunctional club.”
He made a face. “Touché.”
“What about you?” she relented. “Like…you and Ellen seem perfect for each other. How come you never dated?”
“Who said we didn’t?” Mica said quickly, turning back to the TV and groping for the remote.
“Really?” Montgomery’s eyes widened at the new information. Gossip—even here, among these people—was juicy.
“Look, it just didn’t work out, okay?” he muttered, pretending to fix the screen format.
“Oh my gosh—did you guys do it? Is that what happened?”
“Hey. Monty. Shut your freaking trap and watch the elf, okay?” the geek growled, hitting play. “You’re watching a movie you hate to impress your football-playing BF. Ix-nay on the relationship advice-ay. When I want pom-pom advice, trust me, I’ll go straight to you.”
“‘Monty,’” the cheerleader said, giggling a little. “I kind of like that.”
LUNCH BREAK
“So, how’s your…secret project going?” Susan stage-whispered across the table. Montgomery kicked her under it. Her best friend was sitting right next to Ryan, who, breaking convention, was not as dumb as a football player could be. He had already questioned the unmarked bootleg in her purse—something she didn’t usually carry with her cell phone, makeup, and tampons.
Ryan wasn’t paying attention, though; he was shoveling the second of a trio of cheeseburgers into his mouth, the juices dribbling around to his chin. It would stain his white shirt with permanent greasy smears.
“It’s going well,” she said casually, as if it was about something for history class. She studied her limp salad. Then she cleared her throat and got Ryan’s attention by tapping him with her fork. “Hey, there’s a making of Star Wars special on tonight, on the History Channel.”
“Yeah?” Ryan said, surprised. He swallowed quickly. “For real? How’d you hear about it?”
“I don’t know…. Maybe you could come over and we could do our homework and watch it.” Which was really a way of saying “do our homework and make out while we ‘watch it.’” It certainly got his attention.
“Oh, you can’t,” Susan said, pouting. “There’s Reese’s party tonight. You two have to come.”
“I don’t know….” Montgomery said unenthusiastically.
“Well,” Ryan said, torn.
“Come on! I’m going to wear my new top, the one with the zip-down,” Susan said flirtily, wheedling Ryan.
“Hey,” Montgomery warned, surprised at her friend’s forwardness.
“You know I’m just kidding,” Susan said, backing down immediately. “I was just giving some added incentive.”
“Hmm.” Montgomery reached over and stole one of Ryan’s fries, biting it in half, hard.
SF TV: THE SCIFI CHANNEL VS. PBS AND THE MAJOR NETWORKS
After practice Montgomery took the bus over to Ellen’s house for what would be, barring some wonderfully cataclysmic event, an incredibly boring afternoon.
The lone female member of Team Geek promised she would start slowly, beginning with socially acceptable nerd TV (Lost, Heroes, Smallville, BuffytheVampireSlayer), then easing into the more commonly known serious sci-fi with a series of old- and new-school matchups (Dr. Who 1–8 vs. Dr. Who 9 and 10, StargateSG1 vs. Atlantis, old Battlestar vs. new Battlestar), ending with a very brief foray into the hardcore geek-but-not-forgotten (MaxHeadroom, MisfitsofScience, FridaytheThirteenth, plus some sort of Canadian–Luxembourgian Dracula series).
Despite herself, the cheerleader was a little intrigued to see Ellen’s house. She had to admit that this little extracurricular project was interesting at least in how it revealed the personal lives of people she hadn’t really given a wet slap about before.
She could hear the shouting before she even rang the bell.
“Oh, they’re upstairs,” Mrs. Ellen’s-Mom said with a smile, as if nothing was wrong, or she was deaf.
Montgomery mounted the very-normal, very-family wooden staircase with a growing sense of dread. At the top, at the end of the hall, inside a door covered with pictures of stars and space things (and very old stickers of unicorns), was exactly the sort of scene she was afraid she was walking into.
Mr. Ellen’s-Dad was yelling.
Ellen was standing as calmly as she could, a thin trickle of a tear along the outside of her cheek. She was obviously trying not to see the cheerleader standing there, but quickly wiped her face, embarrassed.
“Oh, and there you go, crying again,” her father screamed, noticing her gesture. “For heaven’s sake, why can’t you be more like your hero—what’s his name? Schmock? Spock? Something stupid? The one with no emotions. Why do you have to be so emotional about everything? You’re just like your freaking grandmother…crying over everything. Are you going to cry when an employer yells at you?”
Montgomery looked down at the floor and gave a small cough.
“What? Oh, you must be Montgomery,” he said, calming down immediately.
But whatever small token he was paying to social decency failed against an urge he just couldn’t resist. He immediately turned back to his daughter.
“Look at her—why can’t you be more together, like her? She looks like someone who’s going to college! Not wasting her time with stupid online games! Nice to meet you,” he added, striding angrily down the hall.
“Hey,” the cheerleader said after a moment, with a twisted, understanding little smile.
“Hey,” Ellen said back, sniffling, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Everything was silent in the house. Dust fell; it was hard to tell where Ellen’s father had gone. Montgomery could tell that though they were from opposite worlds, at that one moment the two girls understood each other completely: What had just occurred totally sucked.
The cheerleader noticed Ellen’s outfit with sadness: the tucked-in T-shirt printed with a weird, garish logo, the boy jeans that were actually cut for a boy, the cracked leather belt, the sneakers with duct tape and pins. Not slobby or punk enough to make any statement other than “lame.” Oh, Ellen was going to college. She was super-smart.
She just wasn’t going to interview well.
“Um. I don’t really feel like watching TV. Here,” Ellen finally said.
“No problem,” Montgomery said easily. But she found herself a little disappointed.
Weird.
Here was just the sort of wonderful act of God she was hoping to preempt the afternoon of très boring geekery—she could be at Ryan’s in forty-five minutes if she raced—and now she sort of felt cheated.
She stole a quick glance around and behind Ellen, trying to take in as much of the room as she could before she left. It was similar to Mica’s, but different in a few key, girly areas. A box of tampons. Some stuffed animals. Paisley bedclothes.
A constellation of plastic painted spaceships—starships—drifting from the ceiling.
On her desk was an explosion of things incongruous to the rest of the room: piles of neatly-folded cloth, measuring tape, diaphanous fluff, cones of thread. There wasn’t a sewing machine or anything else crafty in sight save a neatly organized set of model paints.
“Sorry you came over,” Ellen muttered, kicking her toe.
“We could go see a movie or something,” Montgomery found herself suggesting. “Is there anything science fictiony out? You could coach me through it.”
“Nothing good,” Ellen sighed. “But…I’ll see anything. Bad comedy. Crapulent thriller. Explody spies. Anything except for something dumb and chicky.”
“The Sweet Smell of Success is playing at the Art House,” the cheerleader suggested hesitantly.
Ellen gave her a look somewhere between surprise and respect. “A classic, huh? Okay. Yeah. Sure. That’d be great.”
The two girls regarded each other for a second, suddenly realizing that they had somehow just agreed to go see an (almost) normal movie together, almost normally. Almost like friends.
“All right. We’re outta here,” Ellen said, grabbing her wallet, fleeing the touching moment.
“And maybe we could go to the mall afterwards,” Montgomery suggested with a grin.
“What, is this the cheerleader-turns-the-geek-into-a-beauty montage?” Ellen growled.
“No,” Montgomery retorted, “this is the surprising cheerleader-picks-up-her-asthma-prescription expositional scene…
“…and maybe we’ll just pick you out a new pair of pants. Just one,” she added mischievously.
ALL TOGETHER NOW
Technically, it was video-game night. Which meant Mica. But it was hosted at Ezra’s, because he had the aforementioned biggest-baddest TV and greatest number of game systems. Taught by Mica, because he was the expert. Section-led by David, because he was also pretty qualified, and more importantly, wanted to play.
Chaperoned by Ellen because Montgomery refused to go to Ezra’s ever again unless she was along.
The Trekspert was downstairs getting snacks out of the pantry with the host while David, Mica, and Montgomery lounged around Ezra’s bedroom. David sat sort of upside down on the—king-sized—bed, legs up on the wall as if the extra blood rushing to his brain would help. Mica was upright at the computer, logged into the massive multiplayer fantasy rpg of the moment. There were bowls of M&M’s and pizza bagels everywhere.
It was…surprisingly pleasant. Low-key.
Montgomery perched on a stool next to Mica, trying to pretend to care as he made a character for her, then showed her how to bash a level-one goblin.
“See, look! Now you’re level two!” he said proudly, indicating the willowy elf-thing on the screen that had hair and eyes sort of like the cheerleader.
“Yay,” she stated flatly. “What now?”
“Now we go get you some new armor, because you can wear light leather. And a helm, and some boots…”
“Wait, what? We’re going shopping for new clothes? In this game? Are you serious? Can I choose different kinds?” She leaned closer into the screen, putting her hand on Mica’s shoulder to get a better look. If he noticed, or enjoyed it, he didn’t let on.
“Dig the cheerleader loving the virtual shopping. Too much.” David cracked up, his last laugh sounding unfortunately very porcine.
“Oh my gosh,” the cheerleader said, turning around slowly in her stool. “You snorted. You actually snorted.”
“I’m a geek, whatever, like you’re always calling us,” he said, shrugging.
“Hey, Pom-Pom, you were just getting excited about buying a pink shield for your game character,” Mica pointed out.
“Okay, okay, phasers down, everyone,” she said, putting her hands up. “Let’s just get back to work.”
Ezra and Ellen were just entering the doorway, mini-eggrolls and drinks in hand.
“Did she just say what I thought she said?” Ezra asked, amazed.
“By George, I think she’s got it,” Ellen said with a smile.
FINALS
“What are you so stressed out about?” Ryan asked, not looking up from his phone. He was deeply texting.
“I want to be completely prepared for the conven—uh, this big test, and oh…never mind.” Montgomery wore her big comfy sweatshirt and fat jeans, which were normally great for studying in but for the fact that her boyfriend found the outfit unbearably sexy. Tonight, however, he didn’t even seem to notice. Unusual for him, but lucky for her.
“Mmm,” Ryan chuckled at something someone sent him. For a while there were no sounds other than the tapping of his keypad and the turning of notebook pages.
“I’m really glad you’re going to Locacon with me,” Ryan mentioned, not looking up from his phone. “That’s awesome of you.”
“Really?” Montgomery glowed in the praise. She squeezed his arm and lay her head back on his shoulder. He patted her knee.
“Hey, what do you call the vampire who makes someone a vampire? Like, the vampire daddy?” she asked dreamily.
“Sire,” Ryan answered without looking up.
Then he looked up.
“Wait, what?”
“Nothing,” the cheerleader said quickly.
THE GRADUATION
“Um, I don’t know what to say,” Montgomery said honestly.
David, Ellen, Ezra, and Mica stood b
efore her—accidentally in descending order of height—dressed in, well, what she supposed they thought was formal. Ezra wore a jacket and tie, both of which were flashy, expensive, and ridiculously out of place in high school. David wore a jean jacket with all of his pins on it. All of them.
(They made, Montgomery was sort of delighted to realize she knew, a kind of scale-mail armor over his chest.)
Mica wore a vintage T-shirt that was printed to look like a tuxedo, but had a real carnation pinned to the fake lapel. Ellen wore a skirt. And a sweater. And what looked like Ferengi ears. For someone who apparently didn’t know the first thing about makeup, she had done a spectacular job blending the prosthetic into her own skin.
Ezra cleared his throat. Pompously, of course. “On this day we would like to formally congratulate you on achieving the rank of graduate proto-geek….”
“Sub-lieutenant commander,” Ellen corrected.
“Monty the Grey,” Mica suggested with a grin.
“Level Four Cleric,” David stated matter-of-factly.
“Why cleric?” Ellen asked, surprised.
“It seemed like the most scholarly, least violent of all the other kinds of classes. Think of her as a student-monk,” David explained.
“Makes sense,” Mica nodded.
“PEOPLE!” Ezra said, exasperated. “As I was saying. Today we are gathered here to formally congratulate you. Your hard work and near-endless toil have finally accomplished what you set out to do….”
“Good job, Monty,” Mica said, ignoring him. He stepped out of line and kissed the cheerleader on her cheek. She was surprised by the casualness of his socially-appropriate action; he neither blushed nor tried to turn it into something else.
And then he handed her a little figurine of an elf. Blond hair. Legolas, probably. Maybe Haldir.
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