The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love

by Sarvenaz Tash

  “So you and the girl from speed dating . . . ,” she begins.

  “The girl?” I’m genuinely confused for a second before I remember Amelia talking to me outside the Zinc panel. “Oh, right. Amelia.” I nod at Felicia’s bag, where she’s just put her phone. “Is that who the texts are from? Someone you met at speed dating?”

  “Yeah,” she says, looking down at her bag pensively. “They were nice.”

  “They? How many have texted you already?”

  She shrugs. “A couple . . .”

  Of course. I shake my head with a small grin. “Just a couple?” I tease.

  “Maybe a few . . .”

  I laugh. “That’s ’cause the con still goes on for a few hours. I’m sure you’ll hear from the rest soon.”

  “Okay, right,” she says dismissively. “But about you and the girl you met. You think there might be a spark there?” She gives me a friendly, conspiratorial elbow in the side.

  “Oh, no,” I say immediately. “Not that she wasn’t nice or anything . . .”

  She stares at me, as if waiting for me to finish that sentence, but I don’t. So after a moment, she takes it upon herself to finish it for me. “I get it.” She sounds like she’s choosing her words carefully. “She’s no Roxana.”

  I start, and I can’t tell if it’s because of a bump in the train track, or because of the shock to my system. Probably the latter. “So you do know . . . ,” I finally whisper to her. “Wait, is it super obvious?”

  “Not super obvious,” Felicia says kindly.

  My mind reels. “Do you think Roxana knows?” I blurt out, and instantly realize I have no idea what I want the answer to be. If she does know, then I guess I won’t need to plan a grand reveal for tomorrow after all. But then again, if she does know and has shown me no hint that she does . . . she clearly doesn’t return my feelings. Like, at all.

  Felicia shakes her head and quickly gives me at least one small reprieve. “Honestly, I don’t think so. She’s not cool enough to act so nonchalant around you if she did know.”

  “Of course she’s cool,” I say a tad defensively.

  Felicia smiles at me. “That’s not the definition I meant. I meant playing it cool. She wouldn’t be able to know something like that and not get visibly nervous, you know? She’s too sensitive.”

  “Oh,” I respond. I should ask her if she thinks Roxana feels the same way about me. Or if she ever could. I should ask, but . . . I just can’t. Sweat springs out on the bridge of my nose, right where my glasses hit. I feel moisture on my palms as I clench and unclench my fists. God, if I can’t even ask this question of Roxana’s friend, who’s created this perfect opening for me, how the hell am I ever going to confess anything to Roxana herself? I look down at the train floor in frustration, focusing my attention on a sad, crumpled, almost-empty paper cup of lemon Italian ice.

  “You know, in some ways, you guys make a lot of sense,” Felicia finally says, answering my unasked question anyway. I tear my eyes away from the cup and see that she’s eyeing me thoughtfully, carefully.

  There is a long pause.

  “But . . . ,” I croak out.

  “I don’t know, Graham. I truly don’t know if there is a but.” She smiles kindly at me again and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Felicia doesn’t know the answer, which means . . . there’s still hope. Because if the answer was definitely no, wouldn’t Roxana’s girl best friend know? And wouldn’t she put me out of my misery?

  “You’ve never, like, talked about it? About me?” I say quietly, finally feeling brave enough to ask.

  “Not in that way,” Felicia responds. “But to be honest, there are some things Roxana plays very close to the vest. And romance is definitely a top one. I’ve never really been able to get her to tell me much about any guy she’s been crushing on. Not that I haven’t tried!”

  I smile a little in the direction of the Italian ice cup. Maybe things aren’t so bleak after all.

  Felicia tactfully changes the subject then, talking about how fun she thought the costume contest was. “Some of those outfits were just amazing,” she says. “And by the way, I never knew Casey was so funny.”

  “Casey?” I ask. “Zucker?” He can be funny, but usually only the .01 percent of the population who understand all his references would find him so.

  Felicia nods. “Yeah. We were in the same speed dating group and I asked him who his favorite teacher at school was. And he said Mr. Reuben, followed closely by ROSIE, who is the only one who empirically knows many answers and cannot be duped by personal charm or asshattery.” Felicia giggles.

  I laugh too. ROSIE is the artificial intelligence computer that the Robotics Club has been working on and improving for several years now. And unlike some of the teachers at school, ROSIE definitely suffers no fools, and has no soft spot for jocks or class clowns. An awkward academic’s dream.

  A few stops before ours, the seat across from us finally opens up and Felicia gets Roxana’s attention and motions for her to come over. When she does, Roxana shows us the sketch she’s been working on. A paranoid part of my mind has automatically assumed it’ll be a dreamy rendition of Devin, but it’s actually a few panels of Rewinder serving out detention in Master Pernicky’s specially created box, which doesn’t allow her to mess with time. I see Roxana has put in my line of dialogue in a thought bubble.

  “I can only rewind time, not fast-forward it. So why would I want to keep reliving detention? Idiots!” Rewinder says as she stares scornfully at the punishment box.

  I smile. The illustration looks even better and more whimsical than what I pictured in my head . . . as always. Now I just need Roxana to complete our story, to take my words and make them come to life like we were starring in our own panels.

  At the train station in Huntington, we all quickly head to the bathroom to change out of our costumes. After all, the Afsaris just might get a tad suspicious if they saw their daughter come home from play rehearsal dressed as an alien-by-way-of-replicant. I give Roxy a once-over to make sure she got all her makeup off before we head outside to meet Felicia’s brother, Emile, who’s waiting for us in his Toyota Prius.

  “Did you have a good time?” he asks, and we all tell him yes before thanking him for the ride.

  He drops both me and Roxana off at my house and we say good-bye to Felicia, who thanks us again for the fun day. “I kind of wish I was going tomorrow, too,” she calls out before she and Emile drive off.

  Roxana laughs as we watch them go. “She really was shocked she had such a good time, wasn’t she?”

  I laugh too. “She probably had no idea nerd stuff could be so fun,” I admit.

  Roxana looks toward the end of the block, where she’ll have to go to make it look like she got off the late bus. She takes in a deep breath.

  “Just play it cool,” I advise. “Don’t talk about anything. It’s just a normal day.” As if I’m the world’s foremost expert in lying, which I most certainly am not. But Roxana definitely isn’t either, and lying to her parents is probably somewhere near the top of her “Things Roxana Hates” list. Today has definitely been a sacrifice on her part—especially since the Zinc panel didn’t even happen.

  She blows out more deep breaths and nods as I continue to say encouraging words, like she’s a boxer and I’m her coach. She even feigns a little jog as she revs herself up to go home.

  “Text me when you’re in the clear,” I say, finishing my speech. She salutes me and then heads off to the corner, giving me one final glance and wave before she turns it.

  I have about twenty minutes to myself when I get home before Dad comes in—he must have been on the train right after me. Since Casey isn’t around, I’m skipping out on our standing weekly Magic tournament, too. Which I guess means I’ll be hanging out with the fam tonight.

  A few minutes later, Lauren comes in, and I smell Mexican takeout this time. I make my way to the dining room around the same time that Drew and Callie come out of the wo
odwork with the smell of food.

  “Hey!” My dad beams at me. “How was it?”

  “Really fun,” I say, and hand over the Peter Mayhew photo.

  “Awesome,” Dad says as he looks at it. “My collection is almost complete.” He’s been collecting Star Wars autographs from the original trilogy for a long time, even getting people like Alec Guinness before he died.

  “I still can’t believe Graham gets to go to Nerd Central instead of school,” Callie loudly complains.

  “Um, you’ve missed school for pep rally preparation,” I point out.

  “That’s different. That’s an actual extracurricular activity?” Sometimes Callie ends perfectly normal sentences with a question mark, and I’ve never quite been able to put my finger on why.

  At any rate, I get a small jolt of happiness that one good thing came out of the Zinc fiasco today: I don’t have to figure out how to set her up with Casey. ’Cause, let me just say, Callie McCullough would not find Casey’s feelings about ROSIE to be the slightest bit hilarious.

  I’m about to help myself to a serving of rice and beans when my phone buzzes. All clear! the message from Roxana says. I grin and am about to write her back when I see the dot, dot, dot that indicates she’s typing another message.

  Wanna come over for dinner? Zereshk polo tonight . . .

  Sweet! My favorite dish with my favorite girl.

  I make hurried excuses to my family, who don’t seem too concerned that I won’t be around to field insults about Comic Con, and then I practically skip across the backyard.

  Chapter 13

  Dinner

  and a Web

  Video

  “IS THAT GRAHAM?” AN ACCENTED voice calls out as I open Roxy’s back door.

  “Yes, Mrs. Afsari,” I call back as I walk through the mudroom to the kitchen.

  A small woman with jet-black hair, still dressed in her smart business attire, is standing over a steaming pot of white and yellow rice. It smells heavenly.

  I go over and give her one kiss on each cheek, the way I learned to do long ago. “I could smell the zereshk from my house,” I say, pointing to the plump, crimson dried berries dotting her rice.

  She smiles. “Of course you could, shekamoo,” she teases. Another word I learned a long time ago, which roughly translates to “someone with a healthy appetite.” It’s hard for me to understand how someone could eat Mrs. Afsari’s cooking and not have a healthy appetite.

  I grin back. “Plates?” I nod to the cabinet where I know they keep their dishes.

  She nods. “Please. Samira was supposed to set the table, but you know . . .” She rolls her eyes and I laugh.

  Roxana’s eleven-year-old sister is nowhere to be found when I take the plates out to the dining room. More likely than not, she’s working on her fan fiction. And even though I indulged Mrs. Afsari in chastising her for shirking her household duties, I’m much more naturally aligned with Samira’s compulsion to write. After all, I know what it’s like to be lured by the siren song of the muse, whether that comes in the form of a superhero or a member of a boy band.

  I’ve just finished setting the last place when Roxana comes bounding down the stairs, her hair wet from a shower. “Hey,” she says to me brightly before heading to the kitchen to grab the silverware.

  In a few minutes, Mr. and Mrs. Afsari and Mrs. Tehrani—Mrs. Afsari’s mother—have all assembled in the dining room. I give Roxana’s grandmother two kisses too and quickly glance into her eyes—they’re lucid and twinkling, nothing like they were the night she gave us all a scare this summer. Satisfied, I move over to firmly shake Mr. Afsari’s hand. His head is almost completely bald, but he compensates for it by sporting a luxuriant black mustache.

  “So how was school?” He asks his obligatory question as we all take our seats.

  “Good,” I say, and immediately catch a look of panic flicking across Roxana’s eyes. “Junior year is always a little tough,” I go on, to give Roxana time to compose herself. “But I think we’ll be okay as long as we keep up with the work.”

  Mr. Afsari nods solemnly. “It’s very important that you both study hard.” The Afsaris uprooted everything and moved from Iran when Roxana was one so that their daughter would have “more opportunities for a better life.” It’s a specific type of pressure that I know Roxana often feels acutely.

  “Samira!” Mrs. Afsari is standing at the foot of the stairs, calling for her younger daughter. There’s no answer, and then Mrs. Afsari calls again, adding a phrase in Farsi. I don’t know what she’s saying, but I can hear the exasperation in her voice.

  “Coming!” Sam calls down.

  Mrs. Afsari waits until she can hear footsteps on the stairs before giving a curt nod and heading back to her seat.

  A rail-thin girl with long brown hair, almost as tall as her older sister, comes down the stairs, muttering to herself. She smiles when she looks up and sees me. “Oh, good!” she says as she comes to the table.

  I share a conspiratorial grin with her. “How’s the writing going?”

  “I’m having third act problems!” she replies.

  I nod solemnly. “Want to powwow later?”

  “Oh my God. Please!” She grabs a seat as her mother spoons a heaping pile of rice onto her plate, followed by a golden piece of chicken and—the best part of any Persian meal—a slab of crispy rice called tahdeeg.

  I’m salivating as Mrs. Afsari serves me up a portion.

  “So, Graham, how did you do with your ranking? Was it a good number?” Mrs. Afsari asks, and it takes me a second to realize that—of course—we’re still on the subject of school. “We’re very proud of Roxana.” She says Roxy’s name the Persian way—the correct way, as it were, since they named her and all—with a long o and the emphasis on the first syllable. I’ve been secretly practicing saying it this way myself, but something about it feels so intimate that I’ve yet to break it out in front of Roxy. Maybe I can do one big reveal when I finally profess my real feelings. Sort of an I love you and by the way I’ve figured out how to pronounce your name properly one-two punch.

  “I’m number eleven,” I reply, and both the elder Afsaris beam at me.

  “That’s very good,” Mrs. Afsari says as she rewards me with an extra piece of tahdeeg.

  Samira barely conceals the roll of her eyes. I wink at her and she shakes her head. “Nerd,” she mutters under her breath good-naturedly.

  “Did I tell you Felicia is number one?” Roxana says, clearly happy to divert the conversation from what happened at school today.

  I blink at her. Whoa. I’m going to have to let Casey know that. Although, really, we both should have guessed. Still, that’s a tough break for him; it’s going to be pretty near impossible to take Felicia Obayashi down.

  “That’s wonderful,” Mrs. Afsari says. “Her parents must be so happy.”

  I’m sure Felicia’s parents have nothing to complain about—ever—and I wonder if they constantly marvel at having such a perfect daughter or if they just take it for granted.

  “I can’t wait for Sunday.” Samira changes the subject as she pushes some rice and zereshk into her spoon and takes a big mouthful. “They just added another fan fiction panel.”

  Sam is coming to NYCC with us on Sunday, which is the official kids’ day, though I know most of the things she’s interested in are the same things we are. Beside the writing panel, Aaron Dunning, who is one of her favorite celebrities and is also in one of my favorite movies, will be there, and we’re both planning to get our photos taken with him.

  “I wish I could go tomorrow, too,” Samira says, shooting her mom a pointed glare. Samira has Persian school on Saturdays, something Roxy finally managed to convince her parents she could quit this year. But her little sister hasn’t been so lucky yet.

  “What will you be doing tomorrow?” Mrs. Afsari asks Roxana and me, ignoring her younger daughter’s loud sigh.

  “Just some writing and drawing panels. Getting some autographs. That
sort of stuff.” I don’t want to elaborate and make Sam any more jealous than she already is.

  Roxy’s grandmother says something in Farsi. She’s a small woman with laughing hazel eyes and short, perfectly coiffed, brassy blond hair. I’ve never heard her speak English but I know for a fact that she understands every word. (I have definitely caught her watching Law & Order: SVU marathons.) Roxy once told me her grandmother is embarrassed about getting words wrong so she prefers not to even try.

  Memories flood my mind of how, a few months ago, I picked up the phone and heard Roxana’s shaky, tear-filled voice. “My grandmother. Something’s wrong. I called the hospital and the ambulance is coming. But my parents won’t be home for a while.”

  “Be right over.”

  When I got there, Mrs. Tehrani was sitting in the same dining room chair she’s sitting in now, but she was staring off into space, her eyes glassy and unfocused. She was muttering something. I assumed it was something in Farsi, but Roxana corrected me.

  “I don’t know what she’s saying,” she sobbed. “She keeps calling me Elham. That’s the name of her daughter who died before my mom was born. But then she’s speaking in Turkish, too. And I don’t understand.”

  I pulled her in for a hug and then calmly—though I don’t know where that calm came from—told her to go hold her grandmother’s hand and just keep talking to her, letting her know she was there. Roxy did as I said, and then I sat in the chair next to her and held Roxy’s other hand. Mrs. Tehrani continued to mutter to herself, Roxana kept murmuring close to her ear, and I just held on and let her squeeze my hand. When the ambulance came, the paramedics let us both ride with her. Our hands remained clasped together for the whole trip.

  We weren’t allowed to go farther than the waiting room while the doctors and nurses took over. It was another forty-five minutes before the rest of Roxana’s family arrived. Her mom came first, then her dad, who had picked up Samira from summer camp. Roxana and I only let go of each other’s hands about ten thirty that night, when we parted ways in her backyard.