by Laura Preble
Amber snorts. “Well, you’d better let Shelby in on that little secret. At least you guys could share clothes and makeup tips, huh?”
“Very funny.” I jump off the couch to get more coffee from the silver pot. Then the doorbell rings. “I’ll get it,” Becca screams as she scrambles up off the floor.
“Who’s that?” I ask Fletcher.
He sips from his coffee mug. “That’s probably Jon.”
“Jon?”
“He’s the guy who’s going to draw you guys for the website and the comic book.”
4
THE LOVE RHOMBUS
(or The Geometry of the Heart)
I hear Becca’s voice squealing in the hallway, which makes me wonder: I know that she only squeals when her hormones get revved up. So, it’s no surprise when she walks into the playroom arm in arm with this guy, and I can see from her face that she’s already gone.
“Hey, everybody, this is Jon Conner. He’s a computer genius and an amazing artist!” She’s gushing. It’s so totally disgusting I practically throw up my Starbucks. “Here, Jon, you can sit by me.” She drifts to an overstuffed chair where Elisa is sitting, then pokes Elisa with her finger, motioning with wild eyes that she should move to another location.
“Fine, I can take a hint,” Elisa mutters under her breath. I’m thinking it wasn’t so much a hint as an order, but whatever. Becca parks in the chair that’s barely big enough for two people, and Jon sits uncomfortably next to her.
He’s tall, like Becca, which is probably one reason she likes him. She’s taller than a lot of the guys at Green Pines, and that’s intimidating, so she has a hard time finding dates sometimes. But this Jon is as tall as she is, maybe taller, and even though he’s said nothing, I can tell that he is totally wrong for her. He has this blue-black hair that’s straight as a stick and hangs in front of his face, and he’s wearing a tattered black denim jacket scattered with patches from semi-famous punk bands with names like Pus Ponies and Giant Bloody Eyeball. He’s wearing leather bracelets with silver spikes sticking out, and even though it’s summer, he’s wearing studded leather boots with pointy silver toes. What if he was behind you in the lunch line at school? He could totally stab you in the shins and act like nothing happened. I think he’s dangerous. And totally wrong.
Becca continues to gush. “Jon is an amazing artist. When I saw his portfolio, I practically died. I mean, he has such depth and such technique—” When she starts talking in italics, I freak out. “He’s going to draw us, as superheroes, and we’ll enter our website in the competition, and then we’ll win—”
“So, Jon,” I say, shooting him the most uncompromising look of analysis I can muster. He barely blinks behind the curtain of hair. “Tell us about yourself.”
Becca doesn’t even let him talk. “He’s a junior this year, just like Fletcher, and he’s already got certification in three different computer programs, and he’s going to go to work for his dad’s company. His dad is like some computer genius too—”
“Yo, speedy,” Elisa says, waving her arms in front of Becca’s beaming face. “Does he talk too?”
“Oh.” Becca blushes. She blushes! I’ve never seen this in all the time I’ve known her. “Sure. Sorry.” She meekly folds her hands in her lap like some new millennium girl-next-door. “Jon? Why don’t you tell them about yourself? Oh, but first, let me introduce everybody. You know Fletcher.” She gestures toward him and he flicks a half-hearted soldier salute to Jon. “This is Elisa Crunch—”
“And, just so you know, no jokes about candy bars or cereal. My name is a respected one in many parts of Slovakia.” Elisa sniffs indignantly, as if she’s waiting for someone to insult her fantastic candy bar name.
“Right. No crunchy jokes.” Becca smiles eagerly and turns to Amber. “This is Amber. She’s a fantastic poet, and she’s extremely artistic.” I can see by the look on Becca’s face that she regrets saying this. Amber is artistic, Jon is artistic…conclusion? They should hook up. Oh no! She’s sabotaged her own dream date! “Anyway, Amber is a writer, not so much an artist. And her poetry is very dark.”
Amber frowns and swings her curtain of brunette hair from her face. “Well, I wouldn’t say it’s dark, exactly. I mean, there’s no hellish suffering. Unless you count school.”
Jon chuckles under his curtain of hair. This may be a solution. If I can just get him interested in Amber, then—
“Right.” Becca nervously clutches Jon’s hand, and he tries to evade her without seeming rude. It’s so pathetic. I cannot believe someone like Becca, the original Queen Geek, would go on a drool-fest for some guy! We are going to have a serious talk. I might even have to have Euphoria reprogram her. “And this is Shelby.”
“Hey,” I say noncommittally. Becca shoots me a purse-lipped, big-eyed stare of disapproval.
Jon sighs and stretches, I think partially to escape from Becca’s fawning. “Yeah, so, it’s great to meet you all,” he says in this laid-back-to-the-point-of-coma tone of voice. “I’m excited about the website thing, and the graphic novel.” Graphic novel? That’s just a comic book that costs ten dollars. Anyway, Jon does not sound excited. I wonder if he’s just being cool, or if he really isn’t human. “I’ve been wanting to submit something to the amateur comic contest at Comic-Con, but I just didn’t have a great idea that I could really get inspired about.” I see him glance at Amber through his curtain of hair. “So, I’m hoping you’ll all inspire me.”
Fletcher stands up to get more coffee. “So, anyway, Jon’s going to sketch each of you today, just a real quick thing, and then take it back and work on it. Then we can go over the drawings and make any changes before he does the final versions.” He looks over at Elisa and frowns, as if concentrating. “We need to come up with names, though. Elisa, maybe you could be Paper Girl.”
“What would be my superpower? Filing?” she scoffs. “No, I want to be the Anti-Barbie. I’ll wear Keds and have a mask and no makeup, and my hair will be all up in a bun.”
“Well that sounds like you all the time,” Amber says, laughing. Elisa snarls at her and everybody starts chattering. I notice that Jon moves away from Becca, who follows like a sick puppy. Oh, we are so going to have a talk.
Amber, who is sitting on the floor with her legs drawn up under her, says, “I want to be the Dark Poet.”
“I thought you weren’t dark?” Becca says snottily.
“Well, I’m not, but my superhero person could be dark.”
Fletcher waves his hands. “Hang on! You have to focus your powers. I mean, you need to be superheroes of geekiness. So, what talents or skills do geeks have that could be exaggerated?”
We all ponder this for a moment. Studying, organization, pranks, creativity…none of these things sound to me like the makings of a superhero, even a Wal-Mart, low-budget superhero.
“What about the Geektastic Four?” Becca says. “You know, like the Fantastic Four, only geeky.”
Jon’s hair has migrated to behind one of his ears, which I guess indicates that he is engaged in the conversation. “Yeah, and each one of you could have a geek power within the Geektastic Four,” he says.
“Like?” Fletcher asks.
Becca pipes up, “I could be Smart-tastic. And Elisa could be Organize-i-tastic. Shelby’s vegetarian, right? So she could be Vege-tastic.”
“Amber could be Art-tastic,” Jon says, causing Amber to blush.
“Sounds great,” Amber says with a squeak. Well, the conversation goes on like this for probably forty-five minutes, and the whole time I’m sitting there just fuming about this Jon. The girls are fawning, Fletcher is amused, Elisa detaches and jots down stuff in Wembley. Suddenly, with the arrival of Jon, the whole Queen Geek thing seems to be falling apart instead of getting stronger.
“Hey, Becca, didn’t we have plans to see a movie tonight?” I blurt out as Fletcher is spouting off about some video game he’s been playing. Everyone turns and looks at me like I’ve grown a third head. “What?”
“Have you been tracking the conversation?” Becca asks, annoyed. “We were talking about Comic-Con. Why did you all of a sudden bring up a movie?”
“I just thought we’d spent enough time on this website thing,” I say casually. In reality, I’m trying to find a way to ditch the boys so we can have a real discussion.
Jon stands up and stretches like a black cat. A hairy black cat. “Yeah, I really need to get going. Let me take some digital shots of you so I can have something to work with for the drawings.” He pulls a silver camera from his pocket. “Becca? You want to go first?”
Becca flutters and giggles like a moronic junior high beauty queen, and stands up. “Sure. Come over here where the light’s good.” She takes his hand and drags him into the hallway, where the light is not actually very good. From down the hall, we hear Jon say, “But I can’t actually see you…. Let’s move back to the doorway.”
The pair comes back, Becca looking dejected (since her attempt at being alone with Jon has failed) and Jon looking clueless. “Just stand here for a minute,” he says, pointing to the doorway and adjusting his camera. Becca obliges.
We all have to try to crack her up while she’s being photographed, of course. Jon tells her to look smart (since she is Smart-tastic) and she ends up looking more like she’s got digestive problems.
“Oooo, Smart-tastic, show us your brain!” Elisa croons at her.
Amber stands up, grinning, and says, “Please, save us from calculus, Smart-tastic! Banish evil theorems!”
After Jon snaps a few shots and checks them out, he motions for Elisa to assume the position. Becca perches on a chair, ready to tease. “C’mon, Organize-i-tastic. Show us your self-sealing envelopes! Remove some staples, baby!”
“I’m trying to look organized!” Elisa hisses through clenched teeth. She brandishes Wembley, her Palm Pilot, like it’s a police badge. “Take that, chaos and disorder!”
Jon clicks a few, reviews them, and nods in mute approval. “Shelby?”
I trudge over reluctantly and stand there like a piece of driftwood.
Becca snorts, jumps up, and tries to pose my arms in what I think she must see as vegetarian poses: praying hands, Egyptian hieroglyphic hands, belly-dance hands. I let my arms flop like they’re boneless. “Shelby, just cooperate, will you?” she whispers fiercely. “He’s almost done.”
“Sure. I’ll just pretend like I’m enjoying it.” I opt for the hands palm to palm above my head, fingers pointing to the ceiling. Jon waves Becca away and starts clicking. I give him my best malevolent goddess stare.
“Okay, cool.” He turns and looks at Amber. “Okay, you’re last but not least.” She stands up, all willowy poet grace, and switches places with me. “Now, I think for this one, you should be holding a paintbrush or something.”
“I don’t paint,” she says doubtfully.
“Right. But you paint with words, don’t you?” Jon twitches to get the hair out of his eyes. I swear, I am going to go after him with scrapbooking scissors and cut that mop so it has scalloped edges.
Amber ponders his inane question. “I guess I do sort of paint with words, yeah. Okay. Becca, can we use one of your mom’s brushes?”
Clearly annoyed, Becca flounces out of the room in search of photo props. Meanwhile, Jon wastes no time. “So, Amber, what’s your sign?”
“My sign?”
He sidles up next to her and brushes a strand of hair from her face. Their eyes meet. I can almost see the Emo sparks arcing between them. “Yeah, your sign. I think astrology is awesome. You can learn a lot about a person from their sign. I’m Aquarius.”
“Oh.” She is attracted to him, I can tell, but she knows that going after that particular piece of boy candy is going to bring her nothing but grief. “I’m a Libra.”
“Awesome. Libras are artistic, creative, a balance of dark and light. Air sign. Just like me.” He fidgets with the camera. “You were in Mr. Scott’s English class, huh? I saw you every day on my way to art class last year.”
Becca has returned with a handful of paintbrushes that she wordlessly thrusts into Amber’s hands. Jon totally ignores Becca and focuses on Amber. “Okay, so can you cross two brushes, sort of like the bracelet thing Wonder Woman used to do?”
Amber strikes the pose. Elisa snickers and says, “Go, Art-tastic! Velvet paintings forever!” Becca glares at Amber.
Fletcher has eased over next to me and puts an arm around me, then whispers in my ear, “Wow, looks like it’s going to be a summer full of she-fights, huh?”
“Well, if your friend wasn’t such a dork, he’d probably realize that Becca has a thing for him, and then he’d stop going after Amber,” I whisper back.
“I guess, unless he likes Amber and doesn’t particularly like Becca.” Fletcher grins. “Ain’t love grand?”
Jon finishes photographing Amber, and I notice (and so does Becca) that he has taken far more shots of her than of any of the rest of us. He checks the digital camera, smiles (the first time I’ve seen him do it too), and says, “Cool. I’ll start working on these right away. I think it’ll rock. Oh, hey, Amber,” he says as he turns to go. “Could you look at something on my car? I wanted your opinion about it.”
“What is it?” Becca asks brightly. Jon ignores her.
Amber looks very uncomfortable, her eyes darting between Jon and Becca. “I really have to go…wash something. So, I’ll see you, okay?” She darts out of the room, presumably to clean the mystery body part or whatever.
Fletcher continues to look amused and smug. “Hey, Jon, I’ll go out to the car with you,” he says, ignoring Becca’s look of death. They walk out, babbling guy talk about some video game they both play, and I’m left in the tiger cage with Princess Pissy.
“What was that all about?” Becca whirls on me and starts to screech.
“What?”
“That whole…display of whatever it was!” She is in my face now, and I am feeling very claustrophobic. Elisa sits, eyebrow arched judgmentally, Wembley poised to take a photo of us if things turn violent. “You totally blew that for me. I absolutely have a huge crush on Jon, and you tried to do everything you could to screw it up!”
“Oh, you did a pretty good job of that all by yourself,” Elisa butts in.
“I didn’t ask you!” Becca plops down on the truffle chair and sighs, all the vicious wind out of her sails. “Sorry. I just really feel like I had no chance with him. And I really like him.”
“Look.” I sit next to her as Elisa studies us like we’re frogs in biology. “I’m sorry I was being weird. But all of a sudden you were this…this…”
“Fawning, obnoxious, lust-smitten boy puppet,” Elisa offers casually. “I mean, no offense. You were out of control, though.”
“Right.” I shoot Elisa a silent thanks. I wouldn’t have gone so far as to say puppet, but in reality, I had been thinking kind of the same thing. I look Becca in the eye. “I admire you, and I like how you are. When he came into the room, you suddenly started drooling and being this girly-girl whiner who waits for a guy’s approval before you make a move! That’s not Queen Geek.”
“Yeah.” Elisa stands and stretches, putting Wembley back in its holster. I guess she figures no disfigurement will be forthcoming. “You were just an emotional noodle. What was that all about? He was skinny, and his hair was in his eyes.”
“But—” Becca starts, but then Amber comes back into the room. Becca clams up.
“Is he gone?” She searches with her eyes, as if we’re hiding Jon under the couch or something.
“Yes, he’s gone,” Elisa says, taking her by the arm. “You may return to Earth.”
Amber smiles shyly. “Well, he was kind of cute.” She’s looking sideways at Becca, wondering if they’re going to have a hair-puller. “Are you okay?”
Becca absently rubs the little spikes of hair on her head, and leans into the cushy chair. “Yeah, I guess. If you want him, you can have him.”
“You make it sound like you
’re trading a sweater or something,” Elisa comments. “Maybe he’s gay.”
Both Amber and Becca pipe up loudly, “He’s not gay!”
“Methinks the ladies doth protest too much,” Elisa mutters as she stretches. “Anyway, what else do we have to do today other than losing our minds over hairy Emo guys?”
“I say it’s time for the Geektastic Four to head for the pool,” Becca says decidedly. “You all brought your suits, I assume?”
“Uh…bathing suits are against my religion,” Elisa says.
“What religion is that? The Cult of the Crappy Body Image?” Becca snipes at her. “C’mon. You owe it to yourself to liberate your thighs. They need to be free!”
“If you’d seen them, you’d know that freedom will be dangerous,” Elisa replies. “But if you’re willing to put yourself in harm’s way, I’m willing to put on Lycra. Got a suit I could borrow?” She sizes up Becca’s tall frame. “On second thought, maybe your mom has one I could borrow. Or maybe your mom and your maid could stitch two suits together….”
“Stop beating yourself up!” Becca says, ironically thumping Elisa with a pillow as they trot into the hall and up the stairs in search of swimwear.
Amber grabs a canvas bag from the corner and hesitates before heading upstairs. “Hey, Shelby.”
“Yeah?” I already have my own suit on under my clothes, so I pull my T-shirt over my head.
“What about this Jon thing?”
I wad up the shirt and throw it into my bag. “What about it?”
“Do you think Becca really is okay with me…and him…you know.” She is fiddling nervously with the strap of her bag, which I notice has a big ugly picture of Edgar Allan Poe on it. He kind of looks like Jon, actually.
“I don’t know, Amber. I mean, she’s hard to read sometimes. I think she really has a thing for Jon, for whatever reason, and you know when she gets focused on something, it’s hard for her to let go…but she did offer him to you.”
“Like a ratty sweater,” she mutters, swinging her dark hair. “I don’t think that was very nice. It’s not like he belongs to her.”