Geek Charming

by Palmer, Robin

With that, the three of us walked across the cafeteria with the same amount of purpose as if it were downtown Baghdad and we were part of the ABC World News Tonight team.

  I just prayed we didn’t step on any land mines on the way.

  From the second we got up on The Ramp, it became clear that Dylan Schoenfield made Mrs. Tashlock, my trig teacher junior year who took points off if your paper had any creases in it, seem like the most easygoing person on the planet.

  “Here’s a few more do’s and don’ts,” she said as we sat at a table with her, Hannah and Lola, and their three very bland-looking salads. Not one of them had bacon bits or croutons on them. “Josh. Josh. Are you listening to me?”

  I wasn’t. I was too busy gazing down at the cafeteria floor from this new vantage point. I hadn’t really had a chance to take it in when I was up here before. I think I had expected it to look like the view from an airplane, but it wasn’t all that different. The people on the main floor looked exactly like they always did. It was a bit disappointing, to be honest.

  “Sorry. What?” I asked, turning my attention back to her.

  She thrust a few typed pages in my hand.

  “‘Rule number 22: Do NOT shoot me from the right’,” I read. “How come?”

  “Because I don’t want anyone to see the hideous chicken-pox scar on my eyelid,” she replied, undoing her blonde ponytail and smoothing it out so it fell in front of her face.

  “What scar?” I asked.

  She yanked her hair off her face and leaned forward.

  “Watch it!” I yelped, yanking her open Diet Coke can out of the way before it could spill on the expensive postdivorce-guilt camera my dad had bought me.

  “This scar,” said Dylan as she pointed to her eyelid.

  Steven leaned in for a better look. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Welcome to my world,” grumbled Lola, who was chewing each small forkful of salad at least fifty times before she swallowed. What was up with girls and the food stuff? I bet Amy Loubalu didn’t have weird food stuff going on. As beautiful and graceful as she was, I had a hunch that not only wasn’t she afraid of meat, but that she could jam three fries in her mouth and still look great.

  “Look—there’s Asher,” Dylan said.

  He was walking up The Ramp carrying a tray with two pieces of pizza, three cartons of milk, onion rings, and a cupcake.

  “Asher!” she yelled, waving. Who knew such a tiny body could contain such a loud voice?

  Like the other day, he tried to ignore her and keep walking.

  “Babe! Over here!” she yelled louder.

  He looked at his table of surfer buds and with a sigh trudged toward us. “Hey,” he said with the amount of enthusiasm usually reserved for a dentist visit.

  “Sit next to me,” she said, pushing Ari off his seat so Asher could have it.

  He looked like he’d rather do anything but. “Nah, I’m going to sit with my hombres,” he replied, gesturing with his chin at the next table.

  “Oh,” she said, looking disappointed. “Text me later, then?”

  He shrugged. “I guess,” he replied as he walked away.

  “We’re really good at making sure we don’t spend every minute together,” Dylan explained. “’Cause that’s so not healthy.”

  “Yeah, codependence is a killer,” said Steven.

  As Dylan settled back in her chair, she looked at Steven as if just noticing his existence for the first time. “Um, I don’t mean to be rude, but who exactly are you?”

  “I’m Steven Blecher, the sound guy.”

  She gave him a blank look.

  “You paid me twenty bucks freshman year to dissect your fetal pig for you in biology, remember?”

  “Vaguely.” She turned to Ari. “And you are?”

  “Ari Tenser, the lighting guy,” he mumbled. “We were in home ec together sophomore year. You paid me fifteen dollars to make your Irish soda bread for you for the final.”

  “Huh. Are there more of you guys?” she asked.

  “More of us what?” I replied.

  “Geeks.”

  I wondered if she really was that rude, or if she had some sort of medical condition where the filter between her brain and her mouth had been broken since birth. “Actually, we’re film geeks,” I replied. “There’s a big difference between us and the regular geeks.”

  “How so?” asked Hannah as she daintily ate some raisins.

  “Well, film geeks are just . . . cooler. More creative,” I replied. “Less pocket protector and more visionary.”

  “But you’re still a geek,” Dylan said.

  “Technically, yes,” I agreed, “but ever since Quentin came on the scene, film geek doesn’t have the same negative connotation.”

  “Who’s Quentin?” she said. “Does he go to our school, too?”

  Did this girl know anything that didn’t have to do with shopping and makeup? “Quentin Tarantino?” I replied. “Director of Pulp Fiction? Kill Bill: Volume 1? Kill Bill: Volume 2?”

  “Look, I’m going to tell you right now,” she huffed, “unless it’s a romantic comedy, I’ve probably never seen it, okay? But whatever—the fact remains you’re still a geek.” She smoothed her hair. “Now back to the movie—if I’m able to see the scar when I watch it, then you’ll have to cut it out,” she warned.

  I closed my eyes and, taking Mom up on her suggestion to creatively visualize whenever I got anxious, envisioned myself giving the valedictorian speech at USC while Steven Spielberg sat next to me. “Listen, I promise that all of your demands will be met,” I said as I looked at my watch. Lunch was nearly half over. “We should get started.”

  “But what about lunch?” Steven asked.

  I gave him a look.

  “What? You know I don’t work well when I’m hungry.”

  “It seems to me you’ll be okay if you miss a meal or two,” said Lola, who still hadn’t made a dent in her salad.

  He patted his stomach, making it sound like a tin drum. “More of me to love, ladies. More of me to love.”

  The girls looked like they were about to throw up. This was officially off to a bad start.

  Dylan took out her lip gloss and shrugged. “Okay, but I sure hope you took the time to look over the memo I sent you this weekend. Because I’d hate for you to spend a month shooting this and then find out you can’t use it because you didn’t meet my terms.”

  I sighed. This was going to be the longest five weeks of my life.

  “Okay, so, there’s three levels of popularity . . . ” Lola was in the middle of explaining as a group of kids stood behind me while I aimed the camera at her and Hannah.

  “There’s low-level popularity,” Hannah said, pointing to a table at the end of The Ramp. “Like Ashley and Britney Turner and those girls.” I turned and zoomed in to get a shot. It was like Attack of the Killer Clones. All the girls were wearing jeans and the exact same style long-sleeved T-shirt, just in different colors.

  “Wow. From this angle they look like a roll of Life Savers,” I said from behind the camera.

  Lola and Hannah laughed. “Score one for the geek,” I announced. “I can’t believe I made you guys laugh.” Which made them laugh again. There was something about being behind a camera that made me a lot more relaxed. Maybe I should approach Amy Loubalu with a camera and ask her out that way. Then, of course, I’d have to bring it on our date as well, which would be awkward if I took her to a movie or something.

  Lola turned toward Dylan. “He’s funny,” she said. “Who knew?”

  From the bored look on her face as she filed her nails, Dylan didn’t agree. “Any idea when we might get back to me?” she asked without looking up.

  Lola and Hannah looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

  “In a minute,” I replied. “I promise.”

  “Anyway, after that comes midlevel popularity,” Lola said, pointing to a table a little closer to where we were sitting. “That would be Lisa Eaton and Shannon Hall and tho
se girls.” I turned the camera to get a shot of Lisa and Shannon huddled together, flipping through the pages of a fashion magazine. Unlike Ashley and Britney, who wore guilty looks, as if they were just waiting to be found out and kicked off The Ramp, Lisa and Shannon were laid-back to the point where I wondered if they were about to start snoring.

  “And then there’s us.” Hannah smiled. “High-level popularity. Obvious by the fact that we have the prime table smack in the middle of The Ramp.” She smoothed her red bob, looking even more like Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club than she usually did. “It’s okay if you want to come in for a close-up, you know.”

  “Um, hi, everyone? Excuse me,” said Dylan. “This isn’t in the memo, but I’d like to add, ‘The only close-ups will be of me.’ ”

  “But every time I’ve asked you a question so far, you’ve put your hand in front of your face and said, ‘No comment, ’” I said.

  “That’s just because unlike some people,” she said with a glance at Lola and Hannah, “it takes me a little longer to trust people. However, now that I see that you know what you’re doing, I’m ready to talk. Wait—hold on one second.” She flipped her hair upside down and scrubbed at the sides of her head before flipping it back up. “Okay—now I’m ready.”

  I turned the camera toward her. I had to admit, the camera did love her, especially her blue eyes. And it made the little bump in her nose less pronounced. “So Dylan Schoenfield,” I said in my best documentarian voice, which Ari said made me sound like the CNN announcer, “as last year’s junior prom queen, as well as past Spring Fling princess, and homecoming queen, you’re obviously one of, if not the most, popular girl at Castle Heights.”

  She sat up a little straighter and smiled into the camera like a TV anchorwoman.

  “And yet, as we all know from People magazine and Entertainment Tonight,” I continued, “even the beautiful and popular people are still human. So can you tell us a little bit about the pitfalls of popularity? You know, the downside of it?”

  Dylan twisted a piece of hair around her finger as she thought about it. “Well, for good or for bad, when you’re popular, you just can’t escape the limelight,” she said. “Take Angelina Jolie, for instance. Her mom dies and she loses a few pounds because she’s overcome with grief and people say she’s anorexic. And then she goes on one of her trips to Asia to get another kid and eats too much rice and people say she’s getting fat. I mean, the poor woman just cannot win, you know?”

  “So you’re saying that when you’re popular there’s this pressure to be thin?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah, but that’s a whole other issue. What I mean is that when you’re popular, you have to be super nice to everyone all the time. Even when you have PMS. Because if you’re not, then before you know it, it’s all over school.” Suddenly her face scrunched up like she had eaten tuna fish that had been left out in the sun. “Omigod—what is Susan Adelson wearing?” As we all turned to look, I saw Susan walking across the cafeteria in jeans and a red sweater.

  “Jeans and a red sweater?” I said.

  “Uh, yeah, and open-toe Birkenstocks,” she replied. “Rule number 731: unless you were brought up in, I don’t know, Iowa or somewhere like that, everyone knows you don’t wear open-toed shoes after October first. Granted this is California, but still.”

  So much for the nice-to-everyone part.

  She snapped her fingers for me to move the camera back on her. “But getting back to what I was saying—see, it’s like there’s this magnifying glass on you all the time. So that’s why if you’re popular, you’re better off being friends with and dating other popular people. Sort of how actors date other actors. There’s just a shorthand there that makes it easier.”

  As she got up and walked over to Asher’s table, I picked up the camera and started to follow her, stopping when I realized the guys weren’t with me. “What are you guys doing? C’mon.”

  Ari looked terrified. ”Do we have to?

  I sighed and kept going.

  Dylan put her arms around Asher’s neck from behind as he studied a magazine. “That’s why Asher and I are such a perfect match. We’re kind of like the celebrity couple of Castle Heights, right, babe?”

  As he unwrapped her arms from his neck, Asher continued to study the magazine, which, when I zoomed in, I could see it was the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

  “Asher,” Dylan said, punching him on the shoulder.

  He looked up. “Hey, you know I don’t like you touching me in public.”

  After he turned back to the magazine, I could see the hurt that flashed across Dylan’s face, but by the time she had turned back to the camera, she was smiling. “You can cut that last part out,” she said. “We can do an episode on him later,” she said as she walked back to our table.

  “But if you’re only hanging out with people who are just like you,” I asked when she had sat back down, “then how are you supposed to broaden your perspective on life?”

  While she took a sip of her Evian and pondered what I thought was a very deep and thought-provoking question, I zoomed in for a close-up. “Well, that’s what vacations are for,” she finally replied. “Like when my dad takes me to Hawaii for Christmas break, or Aspen for winter break, I meet lots of different people from all over the world. Those trips are very enlightening.”

  Yeah, if you want to enlighten yourself about how other rich people live. I couldn’t believe how out of touch with common man she was. I bet she had never even been to my side of town. “Okay, let me ask you this, then: Was there ever a time when you weren’t popular? When you were just, you know, normal?”

  “Uh-oh,” I could hear Hannah whisper off to the side.

  Dylan hesitated. “Okay, I need you to cut for a second,” she said, putting her hand in front of the camera and knocking me in the nose in the process.

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “I think before we continue, you really need to look over those rules I gave you. Specifically Rules 41 to 45, which are all about creating something that’s fair and balanced.”

  “But why is that an unfair question?” I asked.

  “Because if you read the list, you’ll see that you’re to stay focused on the present. I mean, what, I’m supposed to hang out with unpopular people, like you and your friends? I didn’t make the rules, Josh—I just follow them.” She started gathering up her books. “It’s from following the rules that I’ve gotten where I am and I’m certainly not going to let you guys paint me as some total bitch because you’re jealous of that.”

  “If the shoe fits . . . ” said Steven under his breath.

  “Excuse me?” Dylan demanded.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just ignore him. Sometimes he gets minor Tourette’s syndrome.”

  “Well, I think you’ve gotten enough for today,” she announced as she started walking down The Ramp.

  I sighed as I patted my pocket to make sure my inhaler was still there. If she kept throwing fits like this, I’d end up having a seven-minute documentary to show. Now I understood why Dylan was so far up the Castle Heights food chain—no one else in their right mind would want to be near her. One of the classic story lines in movies is this: boy meets girl. Boy and girl can’t stand each other. Boy and girl realize that, actually, they love each other. Boy and girl live happily ever after. I knew right away that Dylan and I were going to stay stuck in the can’t-stand-each-other phase of the movie rather than pass go and live happily ever after.

  On Wednesday afternoon at 1:45, Dylan sent me a text telling me that she had decided that she was willing to let me accompany her and the girls to Robertson Boulevard, which was a street with lots of expensive boutiques.

  But I have an allergist appointment, I texted back. My doctor was concerned about how often I used my inhaler and was always telling me it wasn’t an antianxiety aid, which bothered me to no end because I didn’t use it for anxiety—I had allergies. Could I help it if I had been born three weeks premature and my lungs
never developed properly?

  OBVIOUSLY as much as u call yrself a FILMMAKER u don’t take it all that SERIOUSLY!!!! was the text I got back.

  Luckily I was able to reschedule the appointment, but I was starting to understand why so many directors were in such bad physical shape—when you were invested in a movie, it was all-consuming. Everything suffered: your health, your relationship. Luckily I didn’t have one of those, but if I did have a girlfriend—like, say, someone like Amy Loubalu—I bet she’d be very understanding and supportive about dating an artist.

  “Tell me again what this has to do with school and popularity,” I asked later as I trudged behind the girls on Robertson Boulevard trying to juggle their packages and my camera. I was on my own, as Steven’s mom wouldn’t let him skip his weekly weigh-in at Weight Watchers (he kept gaining instead of losing, which may have had something to do with the fact that he’d eat entire boxes of 100-calorie Chips Ahoy cookies instead of just one package). Ari had tryouts for the musical version of Macbeth (he was shy in a group, but when you put him onstage, he rocked).

  “As ambassadors of popularity, we owe it to everyone to look our best,” Dylan explained. “Omigod—this is my absolute favorite store!” she squealed for the third time in fifteen minutes, pointing to a place called Magique that had mannequins wearing ripped clothes that made them resemble the homeless ladies on Hollywood Boulevard.

  As the three of them ran inside, I followed, but not before the door smacked me in the face.

  “I bet no one treats Quentin like this,” I grumbled as I juggled the bags and the camera and I opened the door. Once inside I plopped down on an overstuffed chair and tried not to cringe from the techno music that was blaring through the speakers as the girls rifled through the clothing racks. I took out the camera and panned around the store. So this is where popular girls spend their afternoons. I felt like I had found the secret passage to the inner sanctum.

  “Are you with the paparazzi?” sniffed the salesgirl whose pale skin and dark lips made her look like Morticia from the classic TV show The Addams Family.

  “No. I’m a director,” I said proudly.