Talk Nerdy to Me

by Tiffany Schmidt

  My “thanks” was a squeak. Doubts and panic crowded my thoughts on the drive to Curtis’s house and poured out of my mouth when he opened the front door. “I don’t want to play the question game today.”

  He smiled and said “Good morning,” but I talked right over his greeting, slipping inside the door he held open. “But we should talk about your dating question.”

  “Eliza—” He lowered his voice and stepped closer.

  I raised mine and backed up. “My answer is no. I’m not interested. Dating is . . .”

  A clink of metal against ceramic pulled my attention away from his frozen expression and over his right shoulder. His family was seated around the table. The chair he’d vacated was still pushed out, while the occupants of the other four seats stared with cups and utensils and napkins suspended in horror. Well, three occupants looked horrified. Win was cutting a wedge out of a stack of pancakes.

  “I—I—” If the door were still open, I would’ve backed out and kept going. I sucked in a gasping breath, and the scent of maple syrup made my stomach clench.

  “Okay, you don’t want to date me, but do you want to join us for breakfast?” Curtis’s eyes were bright with mischief. “Also, Dad, meet Eliza.”

  As I walked past Curtis to greet his father, I mouthed, “I hate you.”

  He mouthed back, “No, you don’t.”

  Mr. Cavendish stood, napkin in one hand as he extended the other. He was tall and thin like Curtis. Gray haired and smile lined—and fighting back his grin as we traded “nice to meet yous.” And even though Curtis didn’t seem fazed by my dramatic entrance, everyone else was swinging their glances between us.

  “I didn’t know breakfast came with a show.” Win swallowed a mouthful and pointed his fork at me. “A little feedback though: You need more rehearsal if you want your acting to be convincing.”

  “Shut up.” Wink must’ve kicked him under the table, because he jumped and winced. She glared at me.

  “We should let you two talk.” Mr. Cavendish picked up his plate, gesturing for the others to follow him . . . where? To eat in their bedrooms? Win pretended not to see, helping himself to more eggs.

  “Please don’t interrupt your meal,” I said. “We’re—it’s fine.”

  “We’ve got six miles to talk.” Curtis turned to me. “If you still want to run?”

  I nodded. Far away from here, as fast as possible.

  “Be back in an hour-ish. Save me a scone.”

  “You already had two!” Wink and Curtis both dove for the last one on the plate.

  He got there first and licked the top. “I’m a growing boy who’s running six miles. I get three.” He led us out to his driveway, where I covered my face with both hands.

  “You should’ve stopped me.”

  “You were pretty unstoppable.” He chuckled. “Far be it from me to prevent you from speaking your mind. And rejecting me.”

  “I—” I had no words. They’d evaporated from the heat of my humiliation. “Does it help if I say it’s not personal? Not about you?”

  “So, your answer is no. Why not? You don’t have to tell me—but Wink will ask.”

  “I told you: science. There are . . . studies.” I could’ve offered citations, but it wasn’t a moment for dry data and statistical significance. “People get distracted. I can’t afford that. I need to stay focused on my goals. School.”

  “But those studies, your observations—they’re based on other people.” He shuffled his feet as he pulled on his gloves. “Probably very average people. You’re not the average person.”

  “No, but—”

  “Are you going to draw a conclusion without representative data? That’s not very scientific of you.”

  My lips twitched. “I don’t need to play with radioactive elements to confirm they’re dangerous.”

  “I’m just saying, there are a lot of variables that haven’t been factored in—you, me, our collective amazingness. There’s no control group that could account for us.”

  I looked away. Nothing he said changed anything. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.” I clenched my hands. “You’re not half as tempting as you think you are.”

  “But I’m twice as tempting as you pretend I’m not.” Curtis stepped closer, and I backed off the driveway and onto the lawn.

  “That’s fake math,” I sputtered.

  “You’re fake math,” he teased. “Come on, let’s go running.”

  “What?” I blinked at him, not wanting to ask that’s it? But . . . that was it? “My answer is still no.”

  Curtis shrugged. “Mine is still no pressure. You stated your position and I heard you. If you change your mind, you know where to find me, but I’m not going to be that guy.”

  I frowned. Obviously I wanted him to respect me—to hear my words and give them credence—but was I so easy to shrug off? Shouldn’t he look a little disappointed?

  I was.

  I fussed with the cuffs of my gloves. “I hope you like waiting.”

  He grinned and tapped my iLive band—a reminder to remove it, though I hadn’t explained why I needed to. “Look, I worked too hard to get you to tolerate me. If you want to be friends, I’m happy with that. If you want something different, you know where I stand. I’m not going to wreck this.”

  “I never said we were friends.” But, blast, that was such a good answer. I had to twist away in a stretch so he didn’t see my smile. “Our friends are friends.”

  “Which was such a convenient way for us to get to know each other and bond. Aren’t you glad we did?”

  “When exactly did I say we’d ‘bonded’?” I made air quotes and rolled my eyes, but I wasn’t hiding my smile anymore.

  “I don’t hear you denying it.”

  “Shut up and tie your shoes.”

  He grinned. “See, that’s what I like about you—your constant concern for my well-being.”

  “I swear I will push you into traffic.”

  “There’s the level of motivation I need in a training partner. Run fast or—” But the rest of his comeback fizzled into laughter when I did give him a shove—a gentle one—before draping my iLive band on my car’s side mirror and heading down the driveway. I was pretty sure he’d follow me. More sure that I wanted him to.

  It was easier to match our paces on this run. There were moments I pulled ahead, or when he did, but mostly we were side by side. Six miles of cold pavement passed much faster than six miles of solitary treadmill, and when Curtis invited me in for post-run water, I double-checked that the Cavendishes’ cars weren’t parked in the driveway, pretended I didn’t have a full bottle waiting in mine, and accepted.

  Curtis downed a glass in quick swallows before he picked up his scone from a plate on the kitchen island. “Want half?”

  “Of the scone you licked? No thanks.” The thought of chewing something dry and doughy post-run made me thirstier. “It’s not healthy, the way you eat.”

  Curtis grinned. “I’m touched you care.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Isn’t it nice how we communicate without words.” He took a bite. “Rest assured, I do eat vegetables. I had a carrot and zucchini omelet this morning for breakfast. Egg whites even.”

  “You had two blueberry scones, and there was a muffin wrapper on your plate.” His grin grew larger as I revealed way too much knowledge of his eating habits. “I can’t help that I’m observant. I notice everything. You’re not special.”

  “First, I am so special, I have stickers from elementary school that agree. Second, only one was blueberry, the other was cinnamon apple. Third, that was breakfast number three. First was a smoothie, then the omelet . . .”

  My eyes went wide. “That’s a lot of breakfast.”

  “You should see my dinners.” He laughed. “But seriously, when I’m no longer sixteen and hitting growth spurts like pants shopping is my favorite hobby, then I’ll worry. Right now I need to keep weight on or I’ll be flattened o
n the lacrosse field.”

  This was the point where I backed down—I knew nothing about the nutritional needs of a growing teenage boy. I could barely manage my own and had gotten in over my head this fall when my workouts had ramped up faster than my caloric intake. I would’ve self-corrected if I’d had time to catch it, but my parents had quickly pounced on the slight quiver in my BMI. It had led to increased oversight of my food log and lots of articles about disordered eating and exercise.

  They had made me feel small and stupid. Was that what I’d done to Curtis?

  “I shouldn’t have judged you,” I said. “It’s not my place, and I don’t know all the facts.”

  He shrugged. “Hey, it’s not like I don’t judge your lunches, Captain Cruciferous. I don’t think the way you eat is healthy either.”

  I bristled. “Excuse me?”

  “Nutritional, sure. But is it mentally or spiritually healthy to be that regimented? You wouldn’t even try the cupcakes you helped bake.”

  “Just so you know, Merri and I get doughnuts on the first day of school every year.”

  “A whole one time every year? How indulgent.”

  “My parents have rules.” And I liked them. Usually. There were so many ways to disappoint my parents—clear rules were a way to get things right. Each obedient log entry was a sign I was doing daughterhood correctly.

  “But when do you get to make your own rules?” He pointed the remaining corner of his scone at me. “Let me ask you this: Which of us is more controlled by food—the girl who lets someone else dictate what she eats, or the guy who has an occasional treat and makes sure to enjoy it?”

  My retorts crumbled like the scone mess Curtis was making on the floor. Seriously, his plate was right there. But, mess-making aside, was he right? The question rumbled in my empty stomach. I intercepted the last piece of scone on its way to his mouth and popped it in my own.

  It was flakey and appley, with a hint of cinnamon. One bite wasn’t enough . . . but it was one bite more than I’d include in my log. And how long would I be keeping a log? Until I was eighteen? Twenty? Rules felt safe—but his question resonated: When did I get to make my own?

  I raised an eyebrow, and he gave me a slow clap. “By the way, I figured out a solution to your dilemma.”

  I swallowed, the last morsels suddenly gritty in my mouth. “I didn’t realize I had one.”

  “Your whole snafu about dating.” He waved an arm, scattering crumbs. “I like you, you pretend to hate me. Regardless of Anne or the Avery or your ‘rules,’ that’s still true. Let’s make plans—but let’s not-date.”

  “Plans?” I looked at him. “Like, plans to go running? Not date plans?”

  “Isn’t that what I said?” He grinned. “And if we’re working out, of course it’s not a date. No one gets purposely sweaty and stinky on a date.”

  It was verbal gymnastics, but it relieved the pressure in my chest. I could picture myself repeating those same words to Nancy, to my parents. “No, of course it’s not a date. It’s a workout. I needed a faster running partner than Merri.”

  “Fine,” I gritted out. “But I’m expecting seven miles and a challenging route. Can you do that?”

  “Sure. Can you keep up?” Curtis licked his finger and pressed it to the crumbs on his plate—it was like he was trying to draw attention to his mouth. Whatever, I wasn’t going to look. I studied his chest instead. “Also, it doesn’t matter if this is a not-date, because we’ve already had several.”

  My eyes flew up from mapping his muscles. “What are you talking about?”

  “We went together to Fall Ball.”

  “We—” I sputtered. “We did not go together.”

  “We absolutely did. It was you, me, Merri, and Fielding in that car.”

  “Arriving at the dance in the same vehicle is not a date.”

  He shrugged. “What about these past couple of weeks?”

  “Playing video games with your younger siblings?” It irritated me that he was calmly joking while my skin was flushing. “That’s not a date, it’s babysitting.”

  He laughed. “Please tell Win that; I’d like to see his reaction.”

  “It’s still true.” I pointed at his mouth. “Before you say it, baking was not a date.”

  “Exactly.” He pretended to bite my finger, then grasped my hand and spun me around. “So let’s have more not-dates. Lots of them.”

  I was dizzier than I should have been from one rotation. “What are you going to tell people?”

  “If anyone asks, the truth.” I sucked in a breath, because I didn’t know what the truth was anymore. But I was perpetually aware of the untruths I was balancing—the things I was omitting from my log and keeping off my iLive band, the edited stories I told Merri. Curtis dropped my arm. “I’ll tell them we’re not dating. Isn’t that what we just agreed?”

  I exhaled my relief and let myself return his impish grin. “Yes, that is one hundred percent accurate.”

  21

  As Merri and I drove to the Knight Lights’ Martin Luther King Day service project on Monday, I was on high alert. Like her parents’ dog before thunder, my ears were figuratively perked in anticipation of the storm. I was waiting for Merri to know something was up with me, or for Curtis to slip and make some joking-not-joking comment about us dating-not-dating.

  We entered the Knight Light lounge and approached the table where our group of mentors and adoptees were getting ready to fill bags with toiletries for a homeless shelter. Everyone greeted us with smiles, so at least Friday’s Convocation humiliation had erased any lingering anger about my lunch tirade.

  I glanced suspiciously at Curtis as I sat, but he was busy telling Sera about an iLive vid channel devoted to melting objects.

  “Eliza, can I ask you a question?” Lance was Curtis’s best friend. The fact that he needed permission for whatever he was asking had me reaching my foot under the table to stomp on Curtis’s.

  “Ow!” squeaked Rory.

  “Oh, sorry!” I winced, then turned to Lance. “What is it?”

  “Not to sound stupid . . .” He paused. Lance was the least academic among us, and in any other Hero High group, the wary expression on his face might be warranted. Not here. We waited for him to finish. This group, this “Lunch Bunch” or whatever—they were the best part of Hero High.

  Lance fiddled with a stack of toothbrushes. The table in front of us was piled with toothpaste, soap, socks, granola bars, playing cards, and more. Our task was assembly-line style: Curtis opened a baggie and passed it to Huck, who put in deodorant and passed it to Rory for soap. We continued around the table: Toby, me, Merri, Hannah, Sera, and Lance, each adding something before Lance’s adoptee, Dante, sealed the full bags and stacked them in a box.

  Lance finally asked, “Are your parents really in Antarctica? I didn’t know anyone but polar bears lived there.”

  Polar bears only lived at the North Pole, but that wasn’t relevant and I could be sensitive too. I choked back that correction. “It’s not many people—especially during the winter—but yes, my parents are there.”

  “I looked it up,” Curtis said. “We’ve got a couple active research stations down there—but there are, like, forty other countries with their own stations too.” I tilted my head at Curtis, but he matched my curiosity with his own. “Are your parents at McMurdo or Amundsen-Scott?”

  “Amundsen-Scott—the South Pole Station—mostly. But they travel between there and McMurdo while it’s still summer.”

  Lance held up a finger. “Uh, it’s January twenty-first.”

  “Southern hemisphere’s summer,” clarified Curtis—and I was glad he had, because I never managed to correct people without it sounding like an insult. “It’s different at the pole. They get twenty-four hours of sunlight for months, then months of no sun.”

  The bags moved between us as quickly as the questions. Sera was next. “How cold is it?”

  “In austral summer, the average temperature is neg
ative eighteen degrees at the pole.” I’d jumped to answer before Curtis could. Not because I was competitive—fine, I was—but because it had to be suspicious that he knew so much about me-related topics. I scanned the table, but everyone’s interest seemed benign. Maybe his knowledge wasn’t me-based? Maybe I was just egotistical and the last to realize he knew smart things because he was smart.

  “Have they been there in the winter?” Curtis asked. “I don’t know if I could do months of no sun.”

  I nodded. “They wintered over last year. They’ve got about another two months until they do it again. The sun sets March twenty-third.”

  “Wow.” His curiosity felt like ordinary curiosity. It wasn’t salacious. It wasn’t fanboy or like he was looking for anything from me. I slid my foot across the space beneath the table again. This time my aim was better and my action gentler. As my shoe made contact with his, sliding along his inseam, Curtis dropped the baggie he was holding. We both looked down to hide our grins. Maybe not-dating was possible—maybe it was perfect.

  “Hey, Cavendish, you need some help with the bags? You’re holding up the line.” I’d always thought Huck was the ideal adoptee for Curtis—that he was basically a white, dimpled freshman version of his Knight Light mentor. I was wrong. Clearly Huck was a menace. Curtis and I yanked our legs back beneath our own chairs. I slid closer to Merri for good measure.

  Huck snickered and shot me a probing look. “I saw you two on my street the other day. Eliza, what were you doing with this goofball?”

  Those were the questions I feared: Why are you with him? Why do you put up with her? The ones where we were categorized and evaluated on some superficial scale of looks or popularity. Where we were called upon to justify and explain compatibility.

  “You must be mistaken.” No one else had been paying attention—at least not until I went into panic-denial mode.

  Rory snorted. “Doubtful. Huck’s superpower is extreme observational skills. He’s located Merri’s house keys five times this month.”

  Merri pinched my arm—a reminder to breathe—then aimed an exaggerated glare at her sister. “The last time my keys were in your hand because you think hiding them is some sort of funny trick. Spoiler: It’s not.”