Talk Nerdy to Me

by Tiffany Schmidt

  A tension headache began to brew behind my temples. If I walked away now, there was zero chance she wouldn’t email my parents to try and change my mind. There was zero chance they’d support my decision. And the longer I stood here delaying the inevitable, the less time I’d have to cram in my homework and daily log and hit the treadmill before my mandatory bedtime. “Fine.”

  “Excellent!” Curtis held up a palm. I arched an eyebrow, and he grinned, took his other hand, and high-fived himself. Was it any wonder I’d assumed he was vacuous?

  “Don’t make me regret this!”

  “You won’t! I won’t!” He shook his head, a dazzling smear of white teeth on display. “You’re going to love it. Practices are Tuesday and Thursday. If you need any help—”

  “I won’t.” I narrowed my eyes as I palmed my car keys. “Why is this so important to you, anyway?”

  “Because,” he said with a happy nod. “I’m finally going to have some competition.”

  6

  Merri called when I was midsprint. I pulled the emergency clip on the treadmill and jerked to a stop. Leaning against the control panel and breathing hard, I answered, “Hello?”

  “Hi! Sooo, how did things go with Curtis?” Her voice was falsely chipper, and the words sounded like she’d been rehearsing them for the past hour.

  “He’s still breathing with limbs intact.” But I’d been too keyed up to head straight home from our parking-lot encounter. Nancy wasn’t observant, but she’d notice if I stomped through the kitchen while she cooked. I missed cross-country and the hills I could’ve pounded if I had someone to run with. Instead I’d stopped at Reading Railroad, the town book-and board games store where Merri spent the majority of her paychecks. Without her, it wasn’t an hourlong browsing excursion. I’d known exactly what I wanted: a copy of Frankenstein.

  “Are you mad?” Merri asked.

  “At you? No.” I unscrewed the top of my water bottle and took deep swallows. I was sixteen ounces short of my parents’ daily hydration quota.

  “I could’ve stuck around and played mediator, but I didn’t want to make things worse or have you feel like I was picking his side.”

  I tightened my grip on the bottle. Would she have picked his side? “Don’t you remember when he called me ‘Legally Blonde’ in the middle of English class?”

  “Gah, if looks could kill, he’d have been a casualty. But . . . he’s not like Brandi. He hasn’t repeated it since he realized it wasn’t funny to you. And he did get you a spot on the team. By the way, are we joining?”

  I stepped off the treadmill; my stolen workout time was over. Pressing the phone between my sweaty shoulder and ear, I untied my shoes. “You’re on the team; I’m on probation.”

  “So you’ll take over as captain in, what, a week?” Merri laughed.

  “Perhaps.” I smiled, heading upstairs to dinner and homework. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow.”

  The other thing I’d bought at Reading Railroad was sitting on the kitchen counter beside my bowl and plate. Nancy usually ate in her office. I unwrapped the plastic on the box while I picked at beet salad and carrot-and-turmeric soup.

  I’d played Trivial Pursuit before—years ago at a Campbell family game night. When I’d mentioned it to my dad over a video call from New Guinea, he’d suggested that we play too—long-distance. But when I asked about it on their next call, he’d changed his mind. “We looked at the game—only the green category was interesting, and the questions were far too elementary.”

  Green was science and nature. I’d brush up on those as well, but I was focused on the other five categories: geography, arts and literature, entertainment, history, and sports and leisure. I had no use for the game board or the dice or any of the wedge-shaped pieces. I wanted only the cards. I flipped through them as I ate.

  Which president’s ghost is said to haunt the White House?

  That couldn’t be a real question, could it? Who said? Couldn’t anyone offer an opinion and invalidate the question? Also, the only acceptable answer would be: “None. Ghosts aren’t real.”

  What was the name of the car in the 1968 Disney film The Love Bug?

  If that was the sort of question we’d be asked in quiz bowl, I might strangle someone with my buzzer’s cord.

  I scanned for the card’s science question: What’s the best way to pick up a rabbit?

  Nope. That sounded like the setup for a bad dating joke. I pushed the box away. Maybe quiz bowl was the worst club for me—lately all I had was questions and no answers.

  There was an email waiting from my parents post-shower. Two emails in two days was almost an excess of communication.

  Your LifeTracker alerted us to elevated heart rate twice today. The anomalies took place at 10:48 and 16:03 EST. There was also a gap in the monitoring from 17:31 to 18:44. Please account for these. If the sensor is malfunctioning, order a replacement.

  I sighed and hit Reply.

  I can’t account for the anomalies. The first occurred in English class, and the second was during quiz bowl tryouts.

  It was actually after the tryout, while I was bickering with Curtis in the parking lot. But mentioning a boy would result in a lecture on hormones and societal pressure to date and why they forbade it.

  The gap in the data is my fault. I thought the band was on its charger while I did homework. It must not have been connected. I don’t think it’s malfunctioning, but if it continues, I’ll replace it.

  That was a half-truth. The charger part was real, but it was while I was running. In the meantime, having some must-be-the-sensor wiggle room was a bonus.

  I hit Send and pulled out Frankenstein. A piece of paper fluttered from under its cover. I frowned as I unfolded it—I’d recycled my book list at the end of English class. A gesture meant to signal to Ms. Gregoire that my choice was final. How had a copy gotten in this book? My arms rippled with goose bumps; I blamed them on the wet hair that was soaking through my pajama shirt, not on my adrenal glands. These were a physiological response to cold, not emotion. I shoved the list in a desk drawer and grabbed a sweater.

  But when the sleeve snagged on my silver wristband I wondered if it was sending yet another alert, because my pulse was definitely reacting to holding this book. Normally I’d read the introduction and historical notes, but I flipped past these to the preface. A few pages in, I frowned.

  Where was the science? The lab? The enormous green monster? I’d never seen the movie, but everyone knew the gist of the book from Halloween decorations and cultural references. So far the novel consisted of a man writing letters to his sister to justify his entitlement and life choices. But wouldn’t his sister already know his personal history? He kept telling her how, despite his lack of formal learning, he was super special.

  I was over him: a newly rich boy who wanted to buy a boat and play sailor, whining because there was no one on the ship who met his snobbish friendship standards. I had zero empathy for his loneliness. Zero interest as he described his determination to find a faster route to the North Pole. Maybe his type of passion and commitment was supposed to be admirable? After all, my own parents frequently uprooted their lives and faced danger and isolation in order to follow their thirst for discovery—but I lacked that particular brand of ambition.

  Finally, as I was wondering if I’d ended up with the wrong novel between these covers, a man is rescued from a dogsled floating on a piece of ice. The captain is delighted to have a friend—albeit one who’s currently half-dead—and promises to transcribe the man’s “strange and harrowing” story.

  Something about the words made me shiver—or that could’ve been my damp hair. January wasn’t exactly air-dry weather. Whatever the man’s story was, it would have to wait. I had math and history homework . . . as well as a response from Mom.

  Re: LifeTracker—Strange. Neither of those instances should’ve cause elevated heart rate. It’s a given you’d make the academic bowl team, so I can’t imagine any thrill in that victory. From
all accounts your English class is standard.

  I curled in on myself, one knee up on my desk chair and shoulders hunched down, like I could make myself as small as that email made me feel. I hated these moments when I had to stare down irrefutable proof of how little they knew about my life.

  If Mom couldn’t imagine a thrill in making the quiz team, how would she react if she learned I hadn’t?

  I was sure there’d be more anomalies for my parents to notice if they did a deep dive into my LifeTracker’s data from that night. I’d gone to bed on time, but my sleep had been restless. The feeling persisted the next morning. After spilling my oatmeal, vitamins, and a bottle of dish soap, I headed to Merri’s house early. Nancy had already gone to her lab. Maybe I needed company to chase away this skittishness.

  I hesitated only slightly before opening the Campbells’ front door. Merri’s parents had been encouraging me to come in without knocking for years.

  “Hey, Eliza.” Mr. Campbell lifted a soapy hand from the sink and pressed the Pause button on his phone to stop whatever podcast was playing. “How are you doing, pumpkin?”

  He was the only male in the world I’d allow to call me a diminutive. Maybe because it didn’t seem gendered or condescending from him—I’d seen him call their male dogs “sweetheart” and refer to Lilly’s husband as “sunshine.” In every instance, the only emotion it conveyed was affection.

  “I’m fine. Is that Merri in the shower?” If so, she was running late.

  “Yup. Rory snagged it first, and then I heard her on the phone. With you?”

  I shook my head. “Probably Fielding.”

  “Ahh. The boyfriend.” He paused. “Can I ask you a favor?”

  “Maybe?” But I wanted to say “Sure.” While it was so hard to impress my parents, Mr. Campbell always seemed genuinely happy to see his daughters—happy to see me. It was probably pathetic, but the idea that I could please an adult just by showing up was foreign and enticing.

  “How do you like Fielding? Merri’s clearly besotted and I’ve had no misgivings, but after Monroe . . .”

  “He’s nothing like Monroe.” Merri’s ex-boyfriend had trampled every boundary she’d erected and assumed his prerogative trumped hers. I was glad he was gone—both dumped by Merri and expelled from Hero High. “Fielding’s a truly decent person.”

  “Good. It’s much easier when my girls date people we already know.” Mr. Campbell smiled at his youngest daughter as she entered the kitchen and went straight for the box of teas. “So, thanks for that, baby girl.”

  “No problem,” Rory said with a smile. “Morning, Eliza.”

  “Hi.” I narrowed my eyes to study her. Not long ago she would’ve answered her dad with snark—something like, “Yeah, because that’s exactly why I’m dating the boy next door, to make life easier for you.” But since she’d started seeing Toby, Rory’d been less prickly. Less inclined to perceive everything as an attack. Her grades had also improved. She was the antithesis of my parents’ anti-dating arguments. An outlier in their data set.

  Rory added a mint tea bag and boiling water to her travel mug. She slid a pecan bar in her pocket, palmed an apple, and wrapped a muffin in a napkin for Toby. Her dad offered his cheek, and she kissed it before spinning back out of the kitchen. “Bye, Dad. See you at school, Eliza.”

  Mr. Campbell pulled off his pink, ruffled apron before taking a seat at the table. He nudged a chair out for me. “You okay? I know it’s dangerous to comment on a person’s appearance, but you’re looking tired, Eliza-loo.”

  “I’m fine.” But to distract myself, I picked up an apple from the paw-printed fruit bowl and spun it between my hands.

  “Are you up for a science question, then?”

  I sat up straight. “Always.”

  He beamed. “Okay, CRISPR . . . what is it? They’ve been talking about it on this podcast I listen to, but it’s over my head.”

  “I can explain it.”

  “What would I do without you?” he asked. “Also, when are you starting a podcast for old duds like me?”

  “You’re not a dud.” This was our long-standing routine—his questions, my answers, him joking about me starting a podcast called Science for Fools. But he wasn’t one. It’s just that the science community used so much specialized and exclusionary jargon. I leaned forward. “So, CRISPR stands for ‘clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.’ It sounds fancy, but let’s break that down—”

  These moments made me giddy. I wanted to clap, or laugh, or slow time. My parents talked science at me. My teachers recited material for tests. Merri tolerated my occasional science-journal tirades—but no one else asked. No one else wanted to hear me. I took a deep breath. “It’s amazing. They’re using it for gene editing and drug development—”

  “Sorry, sorry! I’m the latest of the late and the worst and—Oh! Muffins!” Merri spun into the kitchen in a clatter of saddle shoes half on and books spilling out of her bag. I caught her copy of Maria; or, The Wrongs of Woman, a bookmark already wedged halfway through.

  “Well, I won’t make you girls any later. But maybe you could tell me another time, Eliza.” I swallowed my disappointment as Mr. Campbell patted my shoulder and kissed Merri’s cheek before she dragged me out the door.

  “It’s super depressing,” Merri chirped as she plucked the novel from my hands. “Definitely not a romance.”

  “You should change books,” I said. “Ms. Gregoire told me I could.” Already I was wondering if I should pick one that didn’t make me dream of icebergs and isolation. It wasn’t like I needed Merri’s permission to change, but if she also switched books, I’d feel less sheepish.

  “Nah.” Merri shrugged and climbed in my car. “It’s one assignment. I’ll find a way to make it work for me.”

  I sighed. If she could, I could too.

  7

  “How’s the future Most Likely to Succeed doing today?” Curtis dropped his lunch on the table, the metal clank of his water bottle so much louder than necessary.

  “Are you talking to me?” I asked.

  “Do you see anyone else who looks like they could write a self-help book at sixteen?”

  That wasn’t a compliment, was it? It couldn’t be. Being named “Most Likely to Succeed” would be impressive only if you added “without even trying,” and lately all my efforts felt transparent. “You’re going to get voted ‘Most Likely to Invent the Next Fidget Spinner.’”

  “Awesome.”

  “I didn’t mean it as a compliment,” I clarified as he reached to fist-bump Lance, who asked me, “What’s mine?”

  “What’s your what?” Merri scooted in next to me, grabbing a grape from the aluminum container in front of me and offering one of the hot breadsticks she’d bought from the buffet.

  “Eliza’s doing superlatives.” Curtis filched the breadstick I’d declined.

  “You started it,” I answered.

  “You escalated it to avoid answering my question.”

  He wasn’t supposed to notice that. “I’ve changed my mind. Yours is ‘Most Likely to Drive Someone to Murder.’”

  “Do I at least get a cool getaway car?” he asked.

  “What? No, not ‘drive’ like a chauffeur; like you are the cause—”

  “Do me!” Merri paired her interruption with a shoulder nudge—a silent signal to stand down.

  “‘Future Bestselling Author,’” I said.

  “‘Most Likely to Accidentally Start a Cult,’” offered Curtis. When everyone head-tilted, he added, “Come on. Who hasn’t followed her walking the wrong direction to class? You telling me that if Short Stack gave us Kool-Aid, we wouldn’t drink it?”

  “On that depressing note, you’d be ‘Most Athletic,’ ‘Most Musical,’ ‘Best Dancer,’ and ‘Most Likely to Own a Bookstore.’” I pointed from Lance to Toby to Sera to Hannah, the last three having arrived during Curtis’s cult recruitment.

  “‘Most Likely to Be Knighted,’ ‘Save Shelf Space for the
EGOT,’ ‘Most Likely to Look Kickin’ in a Tutu,’ and ‘Trout-Fishing Champion,’” countered Curtis.

  The first and last ones didn’t make sense to me, but everyone else was laughing. His were a reminder of their shared history. Mine highlighted that I’d known them only a few months. It was one-upmanship, and it was obnoxious.

  The quinoa puff I’d been holding disintegrated in a fine dust beneath my fingers. The thing I was most likely to succeed at right now was murder. See, I’d been right about his.

  Merri glanced over, but she didn’t nudge or kick me or link her foot with mine beneath the table. My posture was rigid, my teeth ground tight, and the last thing I wanted was to be touched. She cleared her throat, and fine, maybe Curtis wasn’t wrong about her potential as a future accidental cult leader, because everyone shut up and turned toward her. “Personally, I think I’m ‘Most Likely to Be Covered in Dog Hair.’ And Eliza’s ‘Most Likely to Discover a New Element.’ I’d like to go on record that ‘Merridium’ would be an awesome name.”

  And just like that, she prevented lunch from ending in bloodshed. I hoped the magic held for quiz bowl practice.

  Dr. Badawi was embarrassingly excited about my presence at practice, gushing, “Everyone, gather round. We have new teammates!” Only when she introduced me to the team, it was less an Eliza version of “This is Merrilee Campbell; she’s a sophomore,” and more a recitation of my parents’ greatest hits with my name and “the daughter of” tacked on.

  “. . . they’re currently stationed in Antarctica, but I’m looking forward to the day we get to meet them and hear about their experiences and research.”

  Merri and I exchanged looks. My parents didn’t do school events. They spent their rare trips home with colleagues and speaking at prestigious universities. Hero High wouldn’t hit their radar. I barely registered on it; they always seemed slightly surprised and uncomfortable when our paths crossed in the upstairs hallway. Like they’d forgotten I existed as more than a voice on the other end of a phone line, or they didn’t know how to interact with me outside of assigning work.