“I won’t,” I promised as I got into the car and rolled down the window. “You’re not going to tell me who she is, are you?”
“Not tonight,” he replied.
“I didn’t think so.” I sighed. “Tomorrow?”
“Probably not.”
I sighed again. “Fine. Be that way. Good night.”
“Good night,” he replied.
After I rolled up the window, he knocked on it.
“Hey, Dylan?” he said after I rolled it down.
“Yeah?”
He looked at the ground. “Never mind,” he said. “Forget it.”
“No. Tell me.”
It was dark but I could tell he was blushing. “I was just going to say . . . I know you’re only doing this because your dad’s making you, but . . . it’s been fun hanging out with you. Even though you obviously think I have horrible taste in girls.”
“Hey, if you like hanging out with me, you have excellent taste in girls,” I teased. “But seriously—I’ve been having a good time, too. Like I said, I’ve realized you’re actually not that geeky. I mean, obviously there’s room for improvement—like getting you off the inhaler—but you’re definitely not as bad as I originally thought.”
“Thanks. I guess,” he replied.
“Good night,” I said, rolling up the window.
He knocked on it again.
“Yes, Josh?” I said, after I rolled it back down.
“Maybe you’re right about the inhaler,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s a little bit of a nervous habit. I’m going to try and use it less often.”
“Sounds good,” I agreed.
“Well, good night,” he said.
“Good night,” I said.
As I drove away, I thought about how weird guys were. I mean, what was the point of having a crush if you didn’t tell someone who you were crushing on?
chapter eight: josh
I really did mean it when I told Dylan that I liked hanging out with her. Sure, she had this way of thinking that the entire world revolved around her, but she had a good heart. Not only that, but she was willing to use the limited skills that she did have to help out her close friends. Of which, I discovered the following week, I had become one.
It was Sunday afternoon and I was reading the latest issue of Fade In magazine that I had stuck in PC World while Raymond explained to a woman who looked like an extra in Night of the Living Dead because she had triplets hanging off her that, yes, the Play-Doh that her toddler had stuck in the CD-ROM drive of her laptop might explain why it wasn’t working, when I got a text from Dylan.
What time do you get off?
Fifteen minutes, I typed back.
Meet me at Abercrombie then.
I had spent enough time with her by this point to know that saying no wasn’t an option when shopping was involved, even though, for the life of me, I had no idea what she could have wanted. She had finally stopped sighing audibly whenever she took in my standard uniform of T-shirt and jeans, but I highly doubted she was going to ask me for fashion advice.
“What’s up?” I asked when I found her in the guys’ department of Abercrombie with an armful of T-shirts and cargo pants. “I thought you were going to that tribal belly-dancing class with Lola at the gym?”
She held up a red T-shirt to my chest. “Nope. I decided it was time for me to get started on my new hobby.”
My right eyebrow shot up. “What’s your new hobby?”
“Makeovers for the less fortunate,” she replied.
I tried to avoid looking at the pierced belly button of the Cameron Diaz look-alike salesgirl who was folding sweaters ten feet in front of us, but since almost her entire stomach was bare, it was hard. Amy Loubalu would never dress so cheesily. “So who are we making over here?” I asked.
“You, silly.” She smiled.
Uh-oh.
“Where’s your camera?” she asked.
“It’s at home. I didn’t think we were shooting today.”
“Oh,” she said, disappointed. “That’s too bad. This would’ve been great for the documentary. You could’ve done a whole, what’s it called, montage sequence. I love makeover montages—they’re so much fun.”
She held a blue T-shirt up to me. “Even though you still refuse to tell me who you have a crush on, I figured I’d still help you out,” she explained.
I gave her a doubtful look.
“Believe me, I’ve worked on cases that were a lot tougher than you. You know Robert Hughes?”
Of course I knew Robert Hughes. Everyone knew Robert Hughes. He was second-in-command in the Popularity Police after Asher.
“Do you remember what he looked like when he was still going by ‘Bobby’ back in freshman year?”
In my mind I flipped back the pages of my virtual Castle Heights yearbook. “And people call me a geek?”
“Exactly.”
“You were responsible for that?”
She nodded proudly. “Yup.”
“Wow. I have to admit—that’s pretty impressive.”
“And I’m going to do the same for you, mi amigo,” she said as she pushed me toward the dressing room.
“Okay, so she’s not a cheerleader,” I heard Dylan yell from outside the dressing room as I checked myself out in the three-way mirror in a pair of black cargo pants and a green T-shirt that said PHYS EDU. I didn’t think Dylan was aware of the irony of that because, well, Dylan wasn’t exactly an ironic kind of gal, but since I had a computer file of various gym excuses that I had been rotating since eighth grade, I thought it was pretty funny.
“Nope. Not a cheerleader,” I yelled back. I couldn’t decide if I looked cool, or like I should be valet-parking cars at one of those hotels that was so hip it didn’t even have a sign.
“And she’s not on any sports teams, or on the Student Council?” she announced.
Ever since I had made the stupid mistake of telling Dylan there was someone I had a crush on, she had refused to drop the subject. I had to admit that her tenacity was pretty impressive. If she had put half of that energy toward her physics homework (which, over the last few weeks, I had found myself doing most of), MIT would be banging down her door with a full scholarship.
“Nope. No sports teams or Student Council,” I replied as I opened the door and walked out. Since barely anyone at Castle Heights other than me and Amy worked after school, I knew I was coming dangerously close to revealing her identity, but our twenty-questions game had turned into seventy-five questions, and like a captured soldier undergoing Chinese water torture, I was almost ready to crack.
As I stood there like a contestant on one of those reality shows about models, Dylan walked around, examining me from various angles.
I started scratching at my arm. “I think I’m allergic to this material,” I announced.
“It’s cotton,” she replied. “Just like your other T-shirts. It’s just nicer cotton. Okay, now walk over to that mannequin wearing the tank top and miniskirt and back,” she ordered.
I started to walk.
“No—the one wearing a tank top. That’s a tube top.”
I changed course and did as I was told.
“Those pants are very slimming on you,” she finally said.
She sounded like my mom. At least she didn’t call them slacks.
As I stood in front of her she examined me from every angle. “It’s official,” she announced.
“What?”
“There’s only a touch of geekiness left.” She took my glasses off. “Which will be almost entirely gone once you get rid of these.” She ruffled my hair. “And when we get your hair cut and lose the soft-rock eighties feathered thing you’ve got going on? You might even be moving into hottie territory.”
I squinted at myself in the mirror. “Really?” I asked. I knew Amy Loubalu wasn’t shallow enough to care about whether she was dating a hottie or not, but moving up the scale certainly wouldn’t hurt my chances.
I could barely make o
ut my reflection and grabbed for my glasses. “Sorry, but I’ll have to be a little more geekish,” I said.
“Contacts?” Dylan asked as she placed them back on my face.
I shook my head. “I’m allergic to the plastic. It makes my eyes swell up and I look like a giant bug.”
She sighed. “I’m surprised you don’t live in a bubble,” she said.
I shrugged. “It’s probably because I was—”
“—born three weeks early and have an underdeveloped immune system. I know. Okay, Rule number 796? When talking to your crush, skip that stuff. Way too much TMI.”
I nodded. “Got it.” I had heard that Amy Loubalu used to volunteer at a nursing home, so I bet she would be very understanding of medical issues.
Dylan moved my face to the right, and then to the left. “At least let me take you to l.a.Eyeworks so we can get you a pair of Pradas. I’m thinking very chunky black frames. They’re the best when it comes to the whole nerd-chic thing.”
“You know, Dylan, I really appreciate all this, but I don’t have that kind of money—”
“You don’t need it.” She held up her platinum American Express card. “It’s my treat.”
I shook my head. “That’s really nice of you, but I can’t. Absolutely not.”
She pushed me back toward the dressing room. “Yes. You can. And you will. I’m a little lazy when it comes to recycling and stuff like that, so think of it as my way of helping the environment.”
Her logic didn’t quite flow, but by now I knew better than to try to argue with her. “Well, thanks . . . I really appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. And while you have the salesgirl cut off the price tags, I’m going to go get you those pants in a few more colors.” A few steps later, she turned back. “I saw Julia Miller in front of Whole Foods with a Greenpeace T-shirt last week trying to get signatures. Does that count as an after-school job?” she asked.
A shoo-in for valedictorian, Julia Miller had already gotten early acceptance to Brown and Wellesley. She also had more facial hair than I did. “It’s not Julia Miller,” I replied.
Forget MIT—the CIA or FBI should hire Dylan to interrogate people. She’d definitely get them to fold.
After stops for jeans and button-down shirts we decided to refuel at Du-par’s. No wonder Dylan was so skinny—shopping was exhausting.
“Your new look’s working for you—did you see those girls in front of the Hot Dog on a Stick cart checking you out?” she asked as we shared a double order of fries.
“Dylan, they were about thirteen,” I replied.
She shrugged. “So. Attention is attention. You’re really not going to tell me who it is, are you?”
“Who what is?”
She rolled her eyes. “Your crush!”
“Oh. Nope,” I replied, rearranging the napkin I had tucked into my T-shirt to protect it from any ketchup incidents.
“Guys are so much better at keeping secrets than girls.” She sighed. “So are you going to ask her to Fall Fling?”
“The answer to that would be no. I haven’t talked to her for more than two minutes at a time, so I think that might be pushing it,” I replied.
She reached for another fry. “But you look so good now!” she exclaimed. “Thanks to me, that is. Does she work at a place where you can hang out and not seem like a total stalker?”
“Yeah.” I started to reach for a fry, but then thought better of it. If I did decide to try to talk to Amy, it wouldn’t hurt to lay off the junk food. Not that Amy cared about looks or anything like that.
“So do it.” She shrugged. “Have a few conversations with her, then ask for her e-mail address, then her phone number, then start texting, and then ask. But don’t ask her through a text. That would be rude. Plus you run the risk that she’ll forward it to everyone in her address book, which could be unfortunate, especially if you’re a bad speller. Not that you have that problem. Like, you know, Asher does. But, Josh, you need to get going on this—you’re already running the risk of offending her by asking her so late in the game. I mean, it is only three weeks away.”
“I am?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, how much in advance did you ask your date for the prom last year?”
“I didn’t go to the prom last year,” I replied.
“Oh. Okay, well, then what about Spring Fling sophomore year?”
“I didn’t go to Spring Fling, either,” I said, my cheeks turning red.
“Wait a sec—are you telling me you’ve never been to any sort of school dance or a prom?” Dylan demanded loudly.
I slumped down in the booth and shook my head. It was a good thing most of the people in Du-par’s wore hearing aids or else my cheeks would’ve shot up in flames.
For the first time I saw what looked like real compassion on Dylan’s face. Even more than when we had passed the cart at the mall that sold fake purses and a little girl was in tears because her mother wouldn’t buy her one. “Wow. That’s so sad,” she said quietly. “That’s beyond sad . . . that’s like tragedy-size sad. I mean, I’ve been going to the prom since I was a freshman.”
“Yeah, well, you know us geeks . . . we’re allergic to bad cover bands and punch bowls,” I joked.
“No, seriously, Josh—proms and dances and stuff are like . . . I don’t know . . . on the must-haves list for the high-school experience. You have to go to at least one in your life. Otherwise the post-traumatic stress might end up making you go postal in a McDonald’s or something when you’re forty.”
I shrugged. “They just seem dumb to me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why do you have to be so bahhumbug? Where’s your school spirit?”
“I have school spirit,” I shot back. “I’m in the Film Society. And the Russian Club.”
“Okay, Rule number 549: leave the Russian Club part out when talking to the Crush, okay?”
I nodded.
“What about if you ever make a movie about a prom or a school dance?” she asked. “I mean, it’ll be a lot more—what’s the word?—authentic if you’ve actually gone to one.”
She did have a point. I slumped in my seat and sighed. “Even if I did ask her, she’ll never go with me.”
“Why not?”
The more I thought about it, the more I realized Dylan might have a point. If I had learned anything by hanging out with her and her friends, it was that once you got up close to people, you realized that everyone—no matter how popular he or she might be—was just a living, breathing human being complete with zits and bad breath and ketchup stains on their shirts and all that other stuff that makes them human. While Amy was gorgeous, from the limited interaction we had had, she was also nice, so even if she ended up saying no, at least I’d be able to cross off “Never got up the nerve to ask Amy Loubalu out” off my regrets list.
“‘Why not’ is right!” I said, getting more and more excited about the prospect as I squeezed my fry so hard that potato leaked out onto my fingers. “I’m going to do it. I’m going to ask her!”
“You are?” asked Dylan, just as excited.
I slumped down in my seat again. “I don’t know. Can we just go with maybe at this point?”
“Okay, what about just starting with stalking her where she works,” Dylan suggested. “Then, if it goes well, you can ask her if she’s planning on going to Lisa Eaton’s party this weekend. And if that goes well, you can think about asking her out.”
“You mean on a date?”
She nodded.
I grabbed a fry. “Just me and her? Alone?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Josh. That’s usually what happens when you go on a date with someone.”
“Oh.”
She scowled. “Unless, of course, you’re Asher. Then you just ask your girlfriend to stupid Ultimate Fighting events with your stupid friends,” she said bitterly. “Not that I’m bitter or anything.”
“Right. Of course not.” As Dylan herself would say . . . Not.
; “And if the date goes well, maybe you’ll think about Fall Fling,” she continued. “Does that sound like a plan?”
I nodded as I took out my inhaler. Just thinking about asking Amy Loubalu made my lungs constrict.
She held out her hand. “Rule number 857? No inhalers when talking to the Crush.”
I handed it over with a sigh. This was going to be harder than I thought.
If I’ve learned anything in my seventeen years, it’s that life isn’t easy all the time. Parents get divorced, guinea pigs explode under your watch, and you can’t get up the guts to talk to a girl you have a crush on. That being said, what I’ve also learned is that huge dramatic changes can happen overnight. Like, say, the fact that when you catch a glance of yourself in the bathroom mirror the morning after you’ve been made over, you don’t recognize yourself because your new haircut makes you look like a human being rather than a Chia Pet. Or that a new style of glasses can change the shape of your face. I had always considered myself a major player in the film-geek world, but as I put on one of the new outfits that Dylan had picked out for me, I understood what it felt like to feel cool in the real world.
“Just one more picture!” Mom pleaded as I tried to get out the door after gulping down some oatmeal and orange juice because I had been so busy staring at myself in the mirror.
“Mom, I don’t know what you’re making such a big deal about—I’m still me,” I said, grabbing my knapsack. I was, right? I checked to make sure my inhaler was in there. I had a feeling that, with this dramatic change of events, I might need to use it once or twice today.
“I know, honey, but you look so handsome,” she replied, snapping away. “I can’t wait to e-mail this to Grandma. And maybe I’ll send it to my friend Sharon, the one from Introduction to Belly Dancing—I can’t remember if I told you, but her daughter is a junior at Harvard Westlake . . .”
“Nuh-uh—no pimping me out,” I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. If everything went according to plan, I’d soon be dating Amy Loubalu. Or at least talking to her.
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