Queen Geeks in Love

by Laura Preble

  Euphoria takes it delicately in her claw and pops it into an audio bay. “Track?”

  “Eight,” Amitha answers. “That’s the track with the singers so you can hear how it goes.”

  Euphoria finds the track and music starts pouring out of her ears. Amitha plucks the strings of the sitar and strums on it too, producing oddly beautiful chords that mesh with the song being played. The lyrics to the song keep repeating in my head:

  I was born to love [you], and I will never be free.

  You’ll always be a part of me.

  It’s exactly how I feel, how no matter where I go or what I do, I keep seeing his face and feeling as if he’s right behind me, even when no one is there.

  The other girls are all watching for my reaction. I can feel their eyes on me, and I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to do…break into tears, scream “Hallelujah!”, or faint. The song ends, and I still don’t know what to do. So, I just say, “Nice song. Excellent sitar playing. No way am I singing it.”

  “You have to!” Becca screams. “It’s so perfect. He couldn’t resist!”

  “I resisted him when he did karaoke for me,” I point out.

  “Yes, but this won’t just be karaoke,” Amitha says, smirking. “We’ll all be in saris and Indian costumes.”

  “We will,” Caroline says, more in a statement than a question, and with more than a tinge of “I-don’t-think-so” in it.

  “Saris are wonderful. They look great on everybody, and my mother has dozens. We can borrow them. And I’ll teach you all a traditional Indian dance we can do behind Shelby while she sings. It’ll be fantastic! And maybe my brother Naveen can play tabla!”

  “I’m assuming that’s an instrument?” Elisa asks

  “It’s a type of drum. That would be wonderful. He’s in Academic League, though, so he’s very busy. Maybe he can come for just one of the rehearsals at the end.”

  “Wait!” My voice is louder than I intend for it to be. Everyone stops talking. “As I’ve already said, I don’t want to sing anything.” With the realization that their dreams of sari greatness have been dashed, everybody deflates like balloons after New Year’s. Amitha especially looks kind of upset. “I’m sorry,” I say more gently. “I just can’t do it. I’m too shy.”

  She puts her sitar back in its case, and the conversation quickly turns to something else, but I’m really not listening. I’m thinking about Fletcher again, and this time a vision of him wearing a maharajah’s turquoise turban with a big ruby in the middle floats before my eyes. Love sucks, and it makes you stupid.

  During the weeks we’re practicing for the show, Halloween starts to show signs of emerging. Pumpkins are on everything: pumpkin cream-cheese muffins at the Starbucks, pumpkin-shaped cookies at the cafeteria, pumpkin air fresheners that make the classroom smell like a potpourri bomb hit and we’re at ground zero. I know I sound cranky, but come on…it’s just a glorified gourd. Why the big deal?

  After school one day, Becca, Amitha, Amber, and I are walking to my house. For October, it’s an unusually hot day, so we’re all sweating and feeling pretty rotten, and Amitha is lugging her sitar. We’re just talking about nothing and being lazily stupid, when Becca grabs my arm and stops me midstride.

  “Don’t look,” she whispers, staring wide-eyed at the other side of the street. I check Amber’s eyes, then Amitha’s, and all of them look as if they’ve seen King Kong in a tutu. “What—”

  Ever seen something that hits you so hard you feel like you’re in slow motion? The memory of it replays and replays in your head like a movie on the frame-by-frame rewind. That’s how this felt. I turn and look across the street, and walking slowly, leisurely on the sidewalk is Fletcher.

  With his arm around a girl.

  Becca holds my arms with a grip of iron, like she’s afraid I might charge through traffic and strangle one or both of them. “Who is she?” Amber whispers.

  “Keep walking,” Becca hisses as she pushes us forward. “You don’t want him to see us!” My eyes are glued to them, transfixed, like people are when a car crashes. Except in this case, it’s my life that is totaled.

  Too late. He looks up, and our eyes meet. Even as far away as that, I can tell that he’s sad about it all, and in that one glance, a whole story flies between us. It doesn’t need words, and it doesn’t have to be spoken, but I hear it all the same, in my head. Hot tears run down my cheeks, dripping onto my neck, and it feels like I might just cause a flood in the dirty, dusty drainage ditch nearby. And I can feel him watching me as we walk away, and I wonder: Does she mind? Does she even know about me? Was I even worth mentioning?

  We get to my house, but I don’t remember walking there. When Becca fills Euphoria in on what happened, she offers to get online and zap all the electronics at Fletcher’s house, but I tell her that won’t be necessary. Everyone is very quiet, as if they’re afraid to upset me any more. I’m curled up on the sofa; I’m not even crying, just sort of numb.

  “Listen,” Becca says, bouncing onto the couch next to me. “Maybe there’s a logical explanation for this. Maybe it’s a cousin. Maybe it’s an exchange student—”

  “Maybe a blind exchange student,” Elisa offers. “Maybe he’s kind of like her guide dog.”

  “Right!” Becca gestures to Amber to come up with something. She thinks I can’t see her, but I can. “Or it could just be a sports injury. Right?”

  Amber mumbles and finally says, “Yeah, he could have shattered his…elbow…and he needed support, so he had it around her neck. For support.”

  “Stop it!” I hear myself yelling. “You all know that she didn’t look like a blind-cousin-exchange-student-elbow-prop. That definitely looked like a potential…” I can’t even say the word.

  “Okay, so if it’s his newest hottie, so what?” Elisa says airily. “You didn’t need him. You broke it off, right?”

  I scream in frustration and bury my head between two pillows to avoid the obvious. She’s right. She’s right! I absolutely broke up with him. No, I didn’t even break up with him…. I just sort of disappeared without the benefit of a breakup. And now he’s walking with someone else.

  “Honey, honey, c’mon, come up for air!” Euphoria whines, grabbing my shirt collar in her steel claw and pulling me back upright. “This boy is just not worth this amount of grief.”

  “But he is!” I yell, anguished.

  The room falls dead silent. Everyone just stares at me and my tear-stained face.

  “He is worth it.” I stand up, wipe my face, and realize that I’ve been a total ass. “He is worth it. We’re worth it. And I am going to find out who that girl is. And you are going to help me. And I am going to get him back.”

  Everybody cheers, slaps hands, hugs.

  Then Elisa folds her arms across her chest and says, “Shelby, I’m only saying this for your own good. I think you make a great couple. But maybe he’s over the drama, and you must admit, there has been a lot of drama. But if you’re sure you want him back, we have to be organized. Who’s the hottie? We need to do reconnaissance before we can plan a strategy.”

  “So much to do!” Becca shouts. “I hate to say it, but you’re right. Tomorrow, it’s Operation Hottie Spotter.”

  The plan is to totally eliminate me from Fletcher contact the next day (which isn’t hard, since we’re not speaking to each other), and each girl has a separate mission. We plan to meet at the Rock after school to compare notes.

  For most of the day, I just keep thinking about That Girl with Fletcher, thinking about who she might be and why he’d be dating somebody so soon.

  I see Becca in P.E. fifth period, and as we’re dressing, she gives me an update. “Elisa found out who she is. Her name is Megan Lovett. She’s a junior. And Amber text messaged Amitha when she was in geometry with Fletcher, and she was able to check out his binder when he went to sharpen his pencil. No photos of the Hottie.” She takes a deep breath and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Brace yourself.”

  “
Why?”

  “Because Caroline text messaged Claudette when she saw Fletcher heading toward the library with Hottie, and Claudette was out on a nurse pass because she had cramps, so she followed them, and they were in the hallway having a very serious discussion. And the discussion ended with some pretty intense face sucking. However,” she says quickly, staring directly into my eyes, “she was doing the face sucking and he was just passively…accepting it.”

  “Well, that’s just great,” I mutter, slamming my locker a little too hard. “He didn’t object, I suppose.”

  “To be fair, Shelby, he is a guy, and you did kind of blow him off.”

  “Thanks.” I march out of the locker room. “Thanks for pointing that out.”

  “Hey!” She runs to catch up with me as I try to slip into the stream of girls heading for the field. “Wait! I didn’t mean…well, I did, sort of…but anyway, it’s not too late, that’s my point. He wasn’t that into her. I think she’s taking advantage of an opening. We just need to slam the door.”

  As I jog onto the field, Mr. Cruces, our gym teacher, watches me and I sprint like I’m being chased by the cops. Becca can’t even keep up with me. Pounding my feet on the dirt I imagine I am stepping on the Hottie’s face, grinding it into the track with each step, willing her to disappear. “Good job, Chapelle!” he yells, sounding somewhat surprised. If he only knew that I wasn’t running, but committing virtual assault…. I’m not going to tell him.

  After school, we all meet at the Rock as planned. Elisa is dancing around Amber and the other girls when Becca and I walk up. “I know who she is, I know who she is!” Elisa sings. She pulls several pieces of computer paper out of her bag and hands them to everyone. “Subject: Megan Lovett. Grade: eleven. Hobbies: stealing people’s boyfriends. Weaknesses: unknown.” She marches around like a little general, arms behind her back. “Ladies, we need to be sure Ms. Lovett knows exactly what she’s dealing with. And we need to be sure we point out to Mr. Berkowitz just what a weasel in a miniskirt she is.”

  “Is she a weasel?” Amitha asks. “What does that mean?”

  Amber waves the paper. “We found out that she’s dated the entire football squad, all except Fletcher. We believe that this is a conquest, nothing more. She’s just looking to put another notch in her pom-pom.”

  “But how could he be so stupid that he’d fall for that?” I ask.

  “Two words: boobs.” Elisa whips out a picture of Megan Lovett in her cheerleading outfit.

  I just shake my head. “He can’t be that shallow.”

  Amber gestures toward the parking lot. “Becca, your mom’s here.”

  “Thea said she’d give us a ride to your house. We didn’t want to walk in case…well…”

  “In case Fletcher was out walking his cheerleader.” Elisa grabs my arm. “C’mon. Let’s make you a star.”

  At first I don’t see Becca’s mom, because she’s not driving the ratty Jeep. Instead, she’s perched in the driver’s seat of this huge yellow Hummer. “What this?” I ask.

  Becca pulls herself up into the cab of the monstrosity. “She’s just borrowing. Melvin is doing a shoot down here, and he’s rented this stupid thing because he has a very small—”

  “Rebecca!” Thea cuts her off. “You won’t talk about your father that way!”

  “Why not?” She snorts. “It’s true. Why else would anyone drive one of these moronic dinosaur eaters?” We can all fit in it, though, and in fact, we could fit a lot more people in there. It’s much bigger on the inside than on the outside.

  Even though the Hummer is huge and we can see old men’s bald spots from above, Thea careens through traffic like she’s at a NASCAR race, but we somehow make it to my house without damage. She actually parks and comes in, but I figure if Dad sees the Hummer he will absolutely flip; we are an ecologically minded household, and big gas-guzzling monstrosities are usually not welcome.

  “Is your dad home?” Thea asks sweetly. Becca throws her a poisonous glance.

  Euphoria meets us at the door. “No, Mr. Chapelle isn’t at home right now, ma’am. He’s working on a top-secret project that could have ramifications for the entire world.”

  “It’s a new garbage disposal or something,” I mumble. “It’s not all that exciting.”

  Thea’s face lights up. “Oooh. Sounds fascinating. I’d love to talk to him about it some time. Well, anyway, I wanted to work on the Halloween decorations, and all the supplies are here, so if you could just point me to a table where I could work…”

  Euphoria takes her into the dining room while the rest of us head for the couch. “Look,” Becca says firmly. “You have two choices: You can let it go, or you can fight back. What do you want to do?”

  All eyes are on me, and as usual, I don’t know what the answer is. My life feels like that most of the time, like everyone knows the rules except for me, and everyone knows what game we’re playing, but I am clueless. Then an image flashes in front of my eyes, the image of Fletcher with his arm around Miss Tits, and I suddenly get it. “I want to fight.”

  Everyone cheers, and Euphoria rejoins us. “Mrs. Becca’s Mother is working on some very unusual posters for your party,” she comments.

  “Ready to rock and roll, Euphoria?” Becca thumps her on the back, which echoes.

  “I suppose.”

  We work on the song for a couple of hours; it’s actually dark when we quit. Thea has only come out once and she’s smeared with fluorescent metallic paint. “It’s just going to be stunning,” she says, then stops midsentence. “Why are you all dressed in saris?”

  “Never mind,” Becca mutters, turning her and shoving her back toward the dining room.

  The next day is Friday, and we get a recap of activities at the meeting. The acts we signed up last week are almost ready, and we still have a couple of weeks to go, so we decide to concentrate on getting people to the show (not that I necessarily want that, because I don’t want everyone to see me and my robot in saris. That’s the kind of thing that follows you around til graduation.)

  “Operation GeekFest is underway,” Becca says to the roomful of girls. “We’ve decided that the fifty-fifty ticket split would be better if it were eighty-twenty, with eighty going to the juice bar. That means we need to publicize both getting the juice bar and winning the money, so people see that there’s a benefit in both.”

  “Not to mention the enjoyment of seeing people viciously humiliated,” Amber adds, and everyone chuckles, except for the people who are doing the acts.

  The whole next week I feel like I’m in a holding pattern; I only see Fletcher once during the week, and sure enough, he’s walking with Megan Lovett as an appendage. Knowing that a strategy is planned, I resist the temptation to throw nacho cheese in her hair.

  We finally get to the next Saturday, the night of the Halloween party, and Thea has created some intensely strange and interesting decorations. “Where should this go?” she asks, holding up a stylized severed head that looks like it’s straight out of an after-hours cheeseburger nightmare.

  “Uh…the trash?” Becca snipes.

  “It’s fine,” I say, taking the obnoxious head and hanging it over the kitchen doorway. “See? It makes an impact here.”

  “Yeah, it’ll keep you from ever wanting to eat again,” Becca mumbles as she untangles a string of pumpkin lights.

  Dad walks in, and that’s when things get weird. “Oh, hi, Rich!” Thea’s voice gets a little higher and sort of strained. “How’s it going?”

  “Uh…fine.” He frowns over the top of his glasses at the mess we’ve made. “Is this…for school?”

  “No, no, it’s for the party.” Thea grabs a huge bag sitting by the table and pulls out a prepackaged costume. “I’m going to be Vampira, Temptress of the Night. What are you going to be?”

  I truly feel nauseous and so hope that I am misinterpreting the whole thing, but I think my best friend’s mom is flirting with my dad. “Hey,” I say, grabbing Dad by the arm, away from
the scary, scary Vampira. “Euphoria is going to tell fortunes at the party. Isn’t that great?”

  “Uh…” He’s still staring at the Vampira costume, mesmerized. I want to take a string of pumpkin lights and strangle him.

  I push Dad toward the door. If he can’t see Vampira, he can’t be hypnotized by her charms, whatever they are. “Dad, can you bring the trash cans to the front yard?” He walks out, still looking back as if he doesn’t remember he lives here.

  After a turbo afternoon of party prep, Amitha calls out from the living room, “What time is it?”

  “Four,” Becca yells. “We need ice! Shelby, can your dad go get ice?”

  I trot out to the garage to find Dad knee-deep in Eugene. “Oh, what happened?”

  He shakes his head, and wipes grease on an old rag. “Not sure. Something snapped and he just sort of fell apart.”

  “Yeah, I know how that feels.” He smiles at me, and our eyes meet. I try desperately to forget that he was ogling Becca’s moom. “We need ice. Can you run me down to the store?”

  We climb into the Volvo and as he backs down the driveway and passes the Hummer, he says, “Becca’s mom is nice, huh?”

  “Doesn’t the Hummer bother you?”

  “Oh.” He chuckles as he steers the car around the monstrosity. “I’m sure that’s not hers. She wouldn’t drive something like that. Anyway, she’s nice.”

  “Sure, if you like freaky hippies with nose rings.”

  He grunts, maneuvers the car around so we’re headed in the right direction. “Yeah, she is kind of unusual. But nice.”

  Desperate to change the subject, I say, “So, I’m doing a karaoke thing to get Fletcher back.”

  He does a double take and glances over at me, almost running into a curb. “Huh?”

  “Yeah. We’re all doing it, actually. Euphoria is going to help, remember. So, I’m hoping that he’ll see that I’m ready to be in a relationship with him. I’m not so afraid anymore.”

  “Really.” He stops at a light and scratches his head, something he does when he’s working out a puzzle. “Not afraid? Were you afraid before?”