by Laura Preble
I spend the next few days avoiding my dad at home and Fletcher at school. If I don’t see Dad, I figure I don’t have to keep secret any crucial information on his love life. This isn’t that tough to do, because he’s hardly home at all. Euphoria notices that I’m out of the house quite a bit, and by Friday morning, she’s so suspicious that she corners me between the toaster and the low-fat milk.
“What is going on?” she demands, green eye lights blinking angrily. Okay, well I probably just read that anger into the blinks, but she still looks pissed.
I stuff a whole piece of toast in my mouth and motion that I can’t talk because my mouth’s too full. Then I point to the kitchen clock, shrug my shoulders, and seem regretful that I have to leave before I have a chance to engage in what will probably be a very uncomfortable conversation.
As I try to muscle past her, she blocks my way with one steel claw. “Oh, no. You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what is going on.”
I swallow the dry toast, and resign myself to the fact that my robot is a big snoop. “I promised Becca I wouldn’t talk about Melvin. Dad isn’t supposed to know about it. So I’ve been hanging out at the library after school, and then at different coffee places, hoping I won’t run into anyone I know. May I be excused?”
Euphoria considers my explanation and slowly retracts her claw. “You can’t avoid him forever, you know. And what about Fletcher? I haven’t heard you talk about him, and I haven’t seen him all week.”
I shrug uncomfortably. The truth is, I have been studiously avoiding him, too. After that full-frontal assault I staged at his house, I turn scarlet just thinking about him. Joining a witness protection program starts to seem like a great idea. Maybe a witless protection program would be more my speed.
I grab an apple from the counter, and rub the little bridge between my eyes where a headache is already starting to form. “Fletcher’s been very busy. He just hasn’t had time to see me.”
“That’s funny, considering he’s called several times and actually came over here yesterday while you were hiding out.”
“He did?” My heart skips a beat involuntarily. It doesn’t know enough to be embarrassed by my lust-driven pouncing. “Did he leave a message or anything?”
“Hmmm.” Euphoria just pivots on her wheels and rolls toward the dishes. Even somebody made of metal with no real emotions finds me infuriating. I have no chance with real people.
I barely arrive on time to school, which is just as well since then I don’t have to run into anyone who might ask me something I don’t want to answer. As lunch rolls around, though, my stomach starts doing flip-flops, and it has nothing to do with hunger. The Queen Geek meeting will be a real test of my ability to keep a poker face, and I have a feeling I suck at poker.
The room is already crowded by the time I arrive, so I sneak to the back. The regulars are there: Amitha, Caroline, Claudette, and about twenty or so other girls, most of whom I’ve seen before. Becca, Amber, and Evie are clumped at the front of the classroom while Elisa passes out some mint-green papers to every row of girls. I snag one as the stack comes back toward me. Geek Prom Movie Night, the flier reads. A big picture of a filmstrip with some B-list horror movie is centered in the middle of the flier, and underneath, somebody has written a description of the “fun-raiser.” Fun-raiser? That’s like something the Student Senate would put on their fliers, not us.
“Hey,” Becca shouts above the din. “Let’s get started. Shelby, come up front!” So much for going incognito.
As I shove past now-listening girl bodies up to the front of the room, Becca continues. “This will be the most awesome fund-raiser ever. We have a rich benefactor in the film industry who is going to designate one screening of his upcoming movie as our fund-raiser, with tickets selling for twenty dollars. With that money, we can buy or rent the equipment we need to do our remote setups for Geek Prom. We’re inviting geeks from all over the world, and we are shooting for having the most people virtually to attend a prom ever!”
“Has anyone ever virtually attended a prom at all?” a mousy girl in front asks.
“Uh,” Becca stammers, looking to Evie to field the question.
Evie jumps in as if she’s been planning planetary takeovers all her life. “As far as I know, the only virtual proms have been on websites where people have avatars, alternative identities, and they chat and dance with characters. Nobody has ever done a virtual prom like this, as far as I can tell. Maybe we’ll be the first! We’re calling Guinness World Records for this one. And the fund-raiser will be a great way to publicize the event.”
“Why doesn’t this rich benefactor just give us the money instead of making us work for it?” Amitha, an Indian girl whose brother dates Elisa, pipes up.
“Maybe he wants us to build character,” Elisa answers absently as she punches numbers into Wembley, her ever-present electronic personal data computer. “And actually, if we sell all the tickets we could sell, we’ll make a lot more than he’s going to spend to sponsor us with the film screening.”
“How’s that possible?” Amitha continues to prod. I guess maybe she doesn’t like movies or something.
“Because the financial angel is a movie director. He has connections, and so he’s sponsoring the screening in exchange for the publicity. We’ll probably get national coverage.”
The level of excitement and possibility has risen to where it’s almost something you could touch. This happens every time Becca introduces some new, weird scheme that seems impossible, but given her track record, the Queen Geeks have now come to expect that no matter how crazy the idea sounds, she’ll pull it off. I think if she told them she was going to plant a magic bean in the football field and that it would grow into a stalk that would poke a hole in a giant’s jewelry box, they’d show up with buckets to collect the falling gemstones.
Amber raises her bangled arm to silence the chatter. Amazingly, it stops. Amber has clearly been working on her Emo superpowers. “Our goal is Geek Prom. With this fund-raiser, we’ll be able to let people know about it, plus attract attention away from the stupid ‘regular’ prom.”
“What’s so bad about the real prom?” a blonde with oversized glasses and one wandering eye mutters. Unfortunately, she says it during one of those awkward pauses where no one is talking, so all eyes focus on her with varying degrees of contempt.
For a second, it looks like Becca is ready to unleash her spike-haired fury at wandering-eye girl, but then she stops and reconsiders. A lot of times, yelling at people you’re asking to help you isn’t a good personnel strategy. “What’s your name?” Becca asks sweetly.
“Karen,” the blonde answers, blinking slowly, lips pursing slightly as if she’s readying an answer to an onslaught of questions.
“Karen,” Becca repeats. “Well, Karen, here’s what’s bad about this so-called real prom: A lot of girls won’t get to go. Guys won’t ask them, and sure, they could go alone, but who wants to spend all that money on a stupid formal dress and then hang out by the snack bar all night alone?”
“I’d go with my friends,” Karen says quietly, defiant. “I don’t need a date to have a good time.”
This is something of a major blow to Becca. I mean, one reason the Queen Geeks has become so popular is because one of our main focuses has been on the fact that we don’t need guys to be happy or fulfilled. Of course, since I recently tried to tongue-maul my boyfriend against his will, I’m not sure whether I can still be in any group with that philosophy. I wonder if it shows? Do I have a scarlet letter above my lips or something? Anyway, the argument that the “real” prom hinges on dating rings kind of hollow.
Becca’s lips have turned a bit white around the edges, a sure sign that she’s getting pissed. She really doesn’t like people questioning her brilliant, diabolical plans. But just when I think she might blow, Evie jumps in. “You could go to the regular prom without a date, sure,” Evie says, nodding. “But can you wear your Skechers? Can you dye your hair any w
ay you want? Can you party with people from Australia, and England, and Japan? Can you pick the music and the food? Can it be your dance, and not something someone else planned?” A soft murmur in the room rises to a full-on chatter, and the girls are all in animated conversations, discussing whether or not they’d want Vienna sausages or sushi, punk or old school. Becca smiles triumphantly.
“Great,” she says. “Now, if we could just have each one of you get into one of our groups to help with the planning . . . publicity is over there in the back with me, tech stuff is in front with Evie, Amitha is dealing with decorations by the door over there, and Elisa is working on music and food.”
“I brought snacks, too,” Elisa pipes up. “So, you’ll all want to work for me. I take care of my minions.”
The tide has turned; the members of the Queen Geek Social Club have decided that they do, indeed, plan to make the Geek Prom an event to remember. Little clusters of girls scatter to various corners to plot and plan the details that will make Geek Prom the amazing, memorable craziness that they’ve come to expect from Becca.
Before she heads back to the publicity group, Becca spares me a minute. “I didn’t hear from you, so I didn’t assign you anything particular to do.” That statement kind of lingers in the air; we both know there’s more to it than just the words. She softens a bit, and says, “Want to help with publicity?”
“Sure.” I follow her to the back of the room, where she immediately takes command like a field general whipping troops into a frenzy. Meanwhile, I sort of hover at the back of the pack. Mostly, I’m thinking about Fletcher, which seems to be all I’m able to do lately. I drift away mentally, and see myself at a drive-in movie, parked in an old ’57 Chevy convertible. Next to me is Fletcher, wearing a rolled up white T-shirt and jeans. His long legs are folded up over the shiny red vinyl steering wheel, and he leans against his freckly arms folded behind his head. “Great flick,” he says, motioning toward the screen.
In my mind, I look up at the movie and notice that it’s us. We’re the movie. I see myself cornering Fletcher in his room, except that I’m wearing some sort of hookeresque blue tube top and a white lace miniskirt. White makes my hips look big, I notice. Even in a daydream I have a crappy body image.
“I don’t think I own a white lace miniskirt,” I mention as my dream Fletcher slips an arm around my shoulders. Back in the Chevy, I look down and notice I’m wearing some Doris Day- pink cardigan sweater, the kind with the little gold chain linking it below the neck. I am also wearing a poodle skirt, but instead of a poodle, there’s a penguin stitched into it. The penguin winks at me, then goes back to being embroidery.
Now, in the movie in my mind, I’ve got Fletcher pinned to the floor, both my hands (manicured in Corvette red) anchoring both his hands to the rust shag carpeting. For the record, nobody has rust shag carpeting. I think it’s just the one thing that should be featured on Tackiest Rooms in America, and since I’ve besmirched Fletcher’s honor by attacking him, I guess rust shag carpet is what I deserve, rugburn-wise.
The mental movie shows a close-up of my big, fat, sucking lips trying to devour Fletcher’s head. “Yuck!” I say, squeamish. Watching your own lips up close is kind of like studying those sucker fish who live in the cold, dark part of the ocean. You kind of know the things exist, but you really don’t want to come face-to-face with them. “How did you stand it?”
Dream Fletcher laughs and turns to me. “It’s not all black-and-white, you know.” He motions to the penguin on my skirt. “Right?”
“Yep,” the penguin says, nodding. This is extremely hard for it to do since it is in two dimensions. “Except for penguins, nothing is really black-and-white.”
“And even you have an orange bill,” Fletcher points out helpfully.
The penguin snorts, offended.
“So, what do you think?” Becca is saying to me. I focus, and her facial expression communicates that she thinks I’m a joker short of a full deck. Or a penguin short of a poodle skirt. Or something. “Are you with us?”
“In what sense?” I ask. The other girls in the group, including Caroline and Claudette, are all frowning at me, studying me for signs of dangerous insanity. “I’m fine. What were we talking about?”
After ten more minutes of frantic arguments over whether green or pink paper would be best for fliers, the bell mercifully rings. As I sling my backpack over my shoulder, Becca puts me in a friendly chokehold and noogies my head. “Where were you?”
“Hmm?”
“Back there, at the meeting. You were physically here, but mentally on vacation.”
“Believe me,” I reply as I head for the door, “I would not have chosen that particular daydream as a vacation spot.”
I try to get away, but she falls in beside me. “Shelby, we really need to talk.”
Hmm. Probably she’s right. But I don’t want to do it, not right now. “How about tomorrow?” I ask as we dodge the sea of babbling teenagers rushing to class, riding a nacho-and-energy-drink high that would last just until the next period started.
She ducks an empty milk carton that sails toward a trash can. “How about after school?”
I realize I can’t get out of this, unless I want to torpedo whatever friendship we have left. “Okay.” I sigh, stopping at my next class. “By the Rock.”
“You sound so excited,” she says, trying to sound light. I can tell, though, that there’s something heavy between us, and so can she.
7
THE COW JUMPED OVER THE MELVIN (or All Is Dangerous in Love and Art)
All through the afternoon, my stomach feels like it’s home to a herd of caffeinated butterflies doing a conga line. The meeting with Becca makes me nervous. Isn’t that screwed up? I mean, hanging with my best friend should be a treat, something to look forward to. But instead, I’ve got these stupid bugs dancing in my tummy.
When the bell signaling the end of school rings, I take a long time packing up my stuff. The teacher is actually ready to leave, and kind of shuffles papers on her desk while eyeing me suspiciously. Maybe she knows about the butterflies and she’s afraid they might get loose and leave butterfly poop on her carpet or something.
I finally take off, waving halfheartedly as I swing out the door. Becca’s leaning against the Rock, and the campus is pretty empty. I guess I took a really long time packing up.
“Hey,” I say, in my cheerful, what-could-be-wrong voice.
“Hey,” she answers back in her absolutely-nothing-could-be-wrong voice.
“I guess we’re going to my house?” I trudge toward the street, head down, a plaid-skirted traitor in the game of friendship.
She skips toward me, and falls into step beside me. She’s wearing high-top yellow Converse that clomp as she plants her big feet, one after the other, next to my smaller, less interesting appendages. “Your feet kind of look like aggressive bananas,” I offer lamely.
“Thanks?” She grins at me, and I grin back. It feels very awkward.
We walk in silence for a couple of blocks, talking only to make fun of a giant billboard advertising a sports car that, apparently, will turn you into a blond goddess with ponderous cleavage if you buy it.
We get to my house, and take up residence on the old porch swing. I don’t see Dad’s car, so I guess he’s out stalking Thea or something.
Becca swings her long legs out toward the banister, kicking against it with her banana-colored shoes. “So?” she finally says, still swinging.
“So?” I answer.
She abruptly shoves her foot against the rail and stops the swing. “Cut this out,” she commands, her voice harsh.
“Cut what out?”
She turns to me, eyes blazing. “You’ve been acting like . . . like you’re phoning it in. Like nothing matters to you anymore. Now, this can’t just be about Fletcher. I know that’s bugging you, but there’s something else.” She purses her lips and stares out at my magnolia tree before releasing the swing from its foot-anchor. “There’s some
thing going on with us.”
I lick my lips and stare off into the yard also, trying to figure out how to say what I want to say. There’s no good way to express it. I mean, the bottom line is that I think Becca’s doing something kind of immoral, I guess. Immoral? Is that something that should even bother me? It’s not my dad who’s getting screwed over. Or maybe it is . . .
“Hello?” she asks, tapping my skull. “Would you like to involve anyone else in that conversation in your head?”
I swat at her hand as if it’s a big, silver-ringed gnat annoying me. “I don’t think I want to tell you what I’m thinking,” I finally say.
“Why not?”
I sigh heavily, knowing that no matter how I handle it, this conversation will not end well. But what am I supposed to do? She wants the truth, and I guess I kind of owe her that, don’t I? “Okay,” I say quietly. “The whole thing with Melvin really bothers me.”
For a second, she doesn’t say anything at all. I feel a shocked silence occupying the space between us. “Melvin?”
I nod.
“What does he have to do with anything?” She aggressively stamps her foot at the banister, causing little flakes of paint to float to the floor.
“You’re using him just to get what you want. I mean, I know you don’t like him, and that he really treated you and your mom badly, but doing something like this is just . . . just . . .”
“This again?” Her voice gets louder, more angry. “What could you know about it, Miss Righteous? I mean, you’ve never had to deal with a parent who totally screws you over for money, so I guess you wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t understand.” I feel my face turning a violent shade of red, and anger starts bubbling up from my gut. “I don’t understand how someone who claims to be all about equality and fairness and helping people can turn around and manipulate her own father just so she can get something she wants!”
“Oh, and I’m the first kid who’s ever done that!” she yells.