Four Things My Geeky-Jock-of-a-Best-Friend Must Do in Europe

by Jane Harrington

  * * *

  Dear Delia,

  We are now in the French Riviera, my extremely jealous friend. And, believe it or not, I am wearing the bikini with NO shirt over it! Aren’t you IMPRESSED?

  Okay, I haven’t left my stateroom, but it’s still a BIG step for me, because I’m so self-conscious about all this that I feel exposed even with no humans around. Or my mother, for that matter, who is in the shower preparing for another day ashore. I asked her if we could PLEASE hang out on the boat longer this morning, but she’s not having it. I could hide out on the power-walking deck, but I’m too exhausted to slog my way up there.

  It’s not just Barcelona that has me worn out. It’s also the party last night, which, basically, went on until 1:30 in the morning. Everyone was pretty hyper from the chocolate, I guess. There was a scale model of the cruise ship in white chocolate, anchored in a sea of dark chocolate. I am personally responsible for eating three chocolate deck chairs and two chocolate life jackets. Lahn ate an entire smokestack, Tatyana and Noori did in the chocolate hot tub, and AJ snarfed down all of deck nine, I think.

  After that, Noori and AJ (who are still wearing their blue wristbands and STILL into PDAs, let me tell you) disappeared, and we only ran into them one other time during the party. It was at the beginning of Gilligan’s “Treasure of the Sea Hunt,” which was—as you can probably guess—incredibly dumb. He was ALL EXCITED about it, though, and had written little clues, but after about a minute of explaining the rules to everyone over the speakers in the lounge, one of the gamers yelled, “TOURNAMENT!” and EVERYONE shot over to the foosball tables again. Gilligan was left standing there, all pathetic-like, so we took one of his clues and went off on the little treasure hunt (like complete dorks).

  Tatyana read out the first clue: “Go to the place where the ceiling is space and look under the chair that is covered with hair.”

  We decided to go to deck ten—since that’s the top of the boat—which turned out to be right, since we are so smart (and the clue was so stupid). There, we walked around the deck until we found a fur blanket (I hope faux) over one of the lounge chairs. And that’s where we ran into Noori and AJ. They had crawled under it. (The blanket, not the chair.) Tatyana and I tiptoed away, while Lahn pulled a piece of paper out from under the leg of the chair. When we got about a half-deck away, Lahn opened it and seemed to be reading it, then said something to Tatyana in French.

  “Lahn thinks the next clue is at the Roman Ruins Pool, because this clue says, ‘Where the Romans fell, find a bell.’”

  “Lahn read that?” I asked. “I thought he didn’t know English.”

  He shrugged, then said something to Tatyana again.

  “He says he knows English, but doesn’t like speaking it because he thinks his accent isn’t good,” she said.

  “So, he’s understood everything we’ve said?” I asked.

  Tatyana nodded.

  “Like, at the pool party, when you were telling me how I would attract Euro-hotties if I wore my bikini?” I asked.

  Tatyana nodded.

  Lahn seemed to take up stargazing at that moment.

  In an effort to shift the orbit of the conversation JUST a bit, I said to Tatyana, “Okay, wow! That’s COOL that he can speak two languages—and YOU know three! You guys are awesome.”

  Lahn said something else in French, and Tatyana turned to me and said, “He knows Vietnamese, too.”

  “Oh,” I said, nodding (in that whole-body sort of way).

  “And, actually, I know four languages,” she said, looking at me kindly.

  (It’s embarrassing being with these people. I wish you were here, Delia, because you are so simple.)

  At the Roman Ruins Pool, the “bell” was not immediately apparent, so we divided the area into three sections and split up. I was given the pool itself, but since I was fully dressed, I couldn’t exactly jump in to look for anything. So I walked slowly around the edge, gazing through the water. There were just a few people swimming, so I quickly determined there was no bell at the bottom of the pool. You may remember, though, that there is a statue of Neptune/Poseidon in the middle of this pool, and THAT is where I spied the bell—a copper cow bell at the base of the statue.

  This presented a problem, since there was no way to the statue except through the water. There was, however, a guy treading water very near the statue, so I figured I’d just call out to him and ask him to look under the bell and bring the clue to me. The guy was blond. Very blond—like a Swedish person. He also appeared to be very CUTE. So, of course, thinking I might have inadvertently stumbled upon a Euro-hottie, I took the opportunity to: PANIC.

  Luckily (or so I thought), Tatyana appeared at that moment, and I pointed out the bell and the potential Eurohottie and asked her to please communicate with him for me. She took the opportunity to: Tell me to FORGET IT.

  “This could be your code-red Euro-hottie, Brady,” she said. “Just do it.”

  I stood there, just doing nothing.

  “Or I’ll push you in the water,” she added.

  (Delia, did you SEND this person to me?)

  Since I had chosen a white top to wear with my skirt and didn’t want to look like I had participated in a wet T-shirt contest, I thought it best to do as I was told.

  “Hello there!” I called out.

  No response.

  “Maybe he has earplugs in,” she said.

  “HELLO THERE!” I said, louder.

  Slowly, he moved his head in our direction, but still didn’t say anything.

  “Do you speak English?” I called out.

  He swam a little closer to us, but still didn’t answer.

  “Whoa,” Tatyana whispered in my ear. “He is REALLY cute.”

  “Swedish?” I called out.

  He shook his head and swam to the edge, right where we were standing.

  “German?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, pulling himself out of the water at my feet.

  “Uh, so, uh, then, uh, you, uh—” I said. (Very eloquently, don’t you think?)

  “I am Klingon,” he announced.

  Which was weird. But only slightly weirder than where he had positioned himself, which was VERY close and DIRECTLY in front of me, with his eyes fixed STRAIGHT ahead. And since—as it turns out—he is about eight inches shorter than I am, he was staring RIGHT at my, uh, basooma. I was afraid to move for fear of inadvertently knocking him back into the pool.

  (This ISN’T funny, Delia.)

  “Klingon?” Tatyana asked. “Is that in Europe?”

  “Kling,” he said, speaking directly into my shirt. “M-class planet, second in the Klingon Star System.”

  There was silence for a moment, during which time I hoped madly that Klingons are not possessed with X-ray vision. Then I took a careful step backward, but he just moved along with me.

  “Aren’t we REALLY late, Tatyana, for, you know, SOMETHING?” I asked.

  Ignoring me, and apparently OBLIVIOUS to my mounting emergency situation, she said to him, “Is there a Klingon language?”

  “Da pa pa pa go,” he said, his head still not budging from its location in my frontage.

  “Cool! What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Targeting coordinates,” he answered.

  “Say something else,” she said, obviously finding all this very entertaining.

  “Sho pee-eh shuha.”

  “And that means . . . ,” she said.

  “Disengage cloaking device.”

  “Okay, 911!” I yelled, stepping in one direction and then another, TRYING to shed this guy who seemed STUCK to me by some invisible webbing device. FINALLY, I managed to free myself by—yes—FALLING in the pool.

  (You are enjoying this, Delia, aren’t you?)

  He started to jump in after me, but I said, “STAY!” and you know what? He DID. And then he stood there at the edge of the pool, all lined up with Tatyana and Lahn (who had turned up at some point during a
ll the commotion), LOOKING at me. I stood in the water, my Parisian skirt billowing around my legs, and my shirt filling with water.

  “So, why are you so fixated on Brady, anyway?” Tatyana asked Klingon Boy as the three of them gazed down at me.

  “She appears to be my type,” he said.

  “What type would that be?” she asked.

  “Geek,” he said.

  (You will be SO DEAD when I get home.)

  “She’s not really a geek,” Tatyana told him.

  “THANK YOU,” I said.

  “What’s your name?” Tatyana asked him.

  “Gorkon,” he said.

  “Neat,” she said. “And you say you’re from another planet?”

  I wondered: WHY is she encouraging him?

  “He’s a TREKKIE,” I said.

  She looked confused, and I realized—TOUCHÉ!—that I’d FINALLY found something I knew more about than she did. (Okay, it’s a really DUMB thing, but I’ll take it.)

  “Star Trek—a TV show,” I said. “There are people who are REALLY into it.”

  “I am lonely for Kling,” Gorkon said.

  “Oooh,” Tatyana said, in an oh-poor-Gorkon sort of way.

  “Do you want to come with us on our treasure hunt?”

  Then I wondered (while coughing very loudly): HAS SHE GONE COMPLETELY CRAZY?

  “But you have to give Brady some distance, Gorky,” she told him.

  He nodded, mechanically, never looking up into Tatyana’s face.

  Then Lahn said something to Tatyana and pointed at the bell in the middle of the pool.

  “And THAT’S how all this started,” I said, swimming out to the statue and pulling a clue out from under the bell.

  Lame clue #3 read: “Up and down it goes, at the bottom find a rose.”

  So we went on our merry way to the elevator, joined now by this new traveling mate we had picked up on our journey. I felt as if I had wandered onto the set of a REALLY BAD remake of The Wizard of Oz.

  I would tell you the rest of the clues, but there were SO many of them, and they were SO idiotic that you’d probably throw yourself out the nearest open window if you had to read them all. Gorkon didn’t stick with the hunt for very long—perhaps he needed charging—so there’s nothing more to tell about him, either. So I’ll just say that the clues eventually led us back to the teen lounge, where there were prizes waiting for us: CD cases. Very nice. And Gilligan had set out Twister boards, so we amused ourselves with those for a while.

  (He DOES try.)

  The shower has just turned off, which means ma mere (French, now—pronounced “mah mair,” spoken through the nose) will be making me get up and go to Nice (pronounced neece). So THIS is IT! I’m DOING it! I’m WEARING THE BIKINI ON THE BEACH TODAY! And it’s NOT to please YOU, it’s to—well, actually it IS to please you. Oh, why aren’t you here? This is going to be SO hard! I need an incentive to get out and do it. Like the threat of being beaten up by my best friend, for instance.

  Hold on. My mother is saying something. It is, “We’re behind schedule, let’s go, Brady. And PUT something over the bikini top. It’s inappropriate for walking around town.”

  All right, MOM! You DID it! The much needed incentive! A purpose for my bikini-wearing: rebellion! I’m obligated now, as a respectable teenager, to wear this bikini top in public ALL DAY, just to drive you CRAZY! I will proudly get up now and SALUTE my commanding officer! SIR!

  Au revoir! (Pronounced o-vwah, and I hope you know what it means, because everyone else in the world does.)

  Wednesday, before dinner

  (The system of time here is based on floor mats and food, as best as I can tell.)

  * * *

  Dear Delia,

  I was BOLD today. I walked around the streets of Nice in my bikini top, and whenever I started to feel self-conscious—which was only every five seconds—I glanced over at ma mere, who then frowned at me—bless her—giving me the much-needed boost of self-confidence.

  Sometimes parents really DO come through for you, I guess.

  In my bikini top I ate glacé (that’s ice cream in French, pronounced almost like “glass,” which is a little frightening), shopped in little French shops and bought a blouse for you (which I think will fit you because I couldn’t get the buttons to meet at all when I tried it on), and sat openly on benches in parks with French flags waving around me. I was liberated and happy! And then we went down to the shore.

  There are many strange things about the beach in Nice. For instance:

  • There is no sand. The beach is covered with large rocks. I was lurching around as if one leg were eight inches shorter than the other.

  • You can’t lie down on a towel because of these rocks, so everyone sits up or stands, or (if it’s not their first time there) they have beach chairs.

  • There are these French guys on the beach who go around with coolers selling actual HEALTHY snacks, like watermelon slices and oranges. It’s MADNESS!

  • And, the last—and MOST—strange thing about the beach in Nice: It’s a topless beach.

  Imagine my surprise when I stepped (well, hobbled) onto the crowded beach, my head and my, uh, bikini top held high, and then looked around at all these other females on the beach lying in the sun, swimming, chatting, no tops on at all, their boobs boinging everywhere—big boobs, little boobs, young boobs, old boobs. (Hm. Did Dr. Seuss write about that? Oh, no, that was fish.)

  “How did I miss THIS in the descriptions?” my mother said, her face turning DayGlo red. Standing there next to her in my blue bikini and white wrap, I’m thinking: We represent our flag well. (Of course, the French flag is red, white and blue, too, but WHATEVER.)

  “Ma mere,” I said, feeling it was my duty to tease her at that particular moment, “I’m wondering about the term ‘inappropriate’ in THIS situation. Doesn’t ‘inappropriate’ sort of mean NOT doing what is expected of you? So when you’re at a topless beach, aren’t you sort of EXPECTED to go around topless? You know, like, isn’t it ‘inappropriate’ to WEAR a top?” I asked, reaching behind me as if looking for the clasp on my bikini.

  “Brady,” she said in a don’t-even-think-about-it tone. “You’re wearing me down enough today, so let’s not—”

  At that point she was interrupted by a very loud scream that came from my mouth when my bikini top FLEW off, as if flung from a slingshot. And my mother just stood there with a you-made-your-bed-now-sleep-in-it expression on her face, not even TRYING to help me. It was OUTRAGEOUS behavior on her part, which I know I fully deserved, but PLEASE.

  Frantically, I started to root around on the rocks with one arm (with the other I was TRYING to cover myself up, but I SWEAR my arm has gotten smaller lately, because it hardly covered a thing—oh, SHUT UP), but the top was being inadvertently kicked around by a parade of bare-breasted French people, and I lost COMPLETE track of it.

  So, there I was—fully exposed, COMPLETELY freaked out and TOTALLY helpless—for several hours (or at least it seemed that long, although it could have been twenty seconds), until this very old lady appeared in front of me. At first glance, it looked like she was carrying an odd-shaped leather bag around her neck, but on closer inspection it turned out to be something else: ancient ruins, you might say. Smiling kindly, she handed me my bikini top, and then disappeared into the boinging and flapping crowd. And I put my bikini top back on. (With NO help from ma mere, thankyouverymuch.)

  My mother is still convinced I popped my top off on purpose. But I ask you, WHO would do that? Okay, maybe all those people on that beach, but who ELSE would do that? You know I didn’t mean to, right? The clasp just popped open somehow when I touched it. Obviously a defective part—I think there may be a lawsuit in this.

  But even though I have been made—once again—to feel like an idiot in front of all humanity, I am STILL proud of myself. I WORE the bikini, Delia! In PUBLIC! And I am, at this very moment, basking in the sun at the pool—á la bikini—and I’m not even
slightly self-conscious. (OK. Slightly. But that’s all right.) I just went for a swim and was actually able to get up some speed this time, since I no longer had a T-shirt strangling me during the freestyle.

  “I’m sorry about today, Brady,” ma mere is saying. I haven’t seen much of her since we got back from Nice. This is the first thing she’s said to me, actually.

  “That’s okay, Mom,” I am saying to her. “I was being a pain wearing my bikini around town.”

  “Yes, but I guess you have been feeling some pressure,” she says, glancing at my hand.

  “That’s right, it’s all Delia’s fault,” I am saying (in a very enjoyable way).

  “I’ve been thinking about some things, though,” she is saying, as she pulls her sundress over her head and—OH. MY. GOD! SHE IS WEARING A . . . BIKINI!

  “Mom,” I am asking her. “When did you get THAT?”

  “I just bought it here on the boat,” she is saying. “It was on sale.”

  “Don’t you, uh, think that’s sort of, uh, kind of, uh—”

  “Inappropriate? I think the pool is the right place for a bikini, don’t you?” she is saying.

  “But, uh,” I sputter, “you NEVER, uh . . .”

  “I used to wear bikinis, Brady. I grew up in the seventies. But I haven’t worn one since Irene was born. I was bothered about weight gain and stretch marks.”

  Uh, TOO MUCH INFORMATION, I am thinking, VERY loudly.

  “But, you know what, Brady? Today—this whole trip, actually—has changed me. Seeing how the Europeans are so free with their bodies, well, it has made me feel emboldened.”

  My mother is emboldened.

  Be scared.

  Be VERY scared.

  To complete the picture of what is rapidly becoming a typical sort of afternoon in my life, Gorkon has just appeared by my chair.

  “Who is your friend?” he is asking.

  I look around for a second, then realize he is talking about my mother.

  “That is my mother,” I am saying to him. Then, whispering, I add: “She’s sort of geeky.”

  I think I’ll go swim a few more laps.