Geek Abroad (21 page)

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: many happy returns of the day

Seriously? Your family forgot your birthday? That’s so unbelievably lame.

I didn’t even know it was your birthday (although technically I didn’t forget, since you never told me). Still, I feel like a bit of a prat for not sending you a card.

My Top Three Worst Birthdays

1. age fourteen (measles)
2. age eight (petting zoo disaster; I ended up in hospital, after being bitten by a goat)
3. age one (don’t remember this one, but my mum tells me that there was an incident involving the birthday cake and a dirty nappy)
I’ll make it up to you when you come back to London.We’ll have a belated birthday bonanza.

Cheers, Happy Birthday,

Henry

I spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon in my room, studying and feeling sorry for myself. I had to read a few chapters of
1984
for Mod Lit, a chapter in my
Art History of the Renaissance
book, and a paper on World War Two for modern history class, all of which was due on Monday. For lunch, I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and brought it back up to my room on a tray, so I wouldn’t have to eat with the others. . . .Not that they were even around, from what I could tell.

In the afternoon, I took a break from studying, and took Willow for a walk.

I can’t believe everyone forgot,
I thought sadly, as we made our way down the beach. Finn and Charlie hadn’t, of course; we still had plans to meet up at the bowling alley. But I hadn’t gotten so much as a single card, not even from Sadie. My own mother had forgotten my birthday! How big of a loser did you have to be for your own mother to forget the day you were born?

But when Willow and I got back, my dad was waiting for us on the back deck, looking chagrined.

“Miranda . . . I’m so sorry,”he said. “It’s your birthday.”

I shrugged. I really wasn’t ready to forgive and forget just yet.

“It’s okay,”I said.

“No, it’s not. It’s . . . well. I don’t know what to say,”he said. He hugged me to him. I held my body stiff, away from his for a moment, but finally relented and let him fold me into his arms.

“How’d you figure it out?”I asked.

“This arrived while you were out,”he said, handing me a FedEx box. It was addressed to me in Sadie’s familiar elegant scrawl. Underneath my name, she’d written: HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN!

A wave of relief washed over me. At least Sadie hadn’t forgotten me. I tore open the package. There was a card and two wrapped packages inside. I sank down on one of the wrought iron porch chairs and opened the card first. It was arty, with a painting of a peacock on the front. Inside, it read:

Have a very happy birthday, Miranda! I wish I could be there to spend it with you. I miss you terribly! Love and kisses, Sadie

I opened the larger of the two packages. It was an old book wrapped in multiple layers of lavender tissue paper. Once I got the wrapping off, I recognized it immediately.

“Wind in the Willows!”
I exclaimed, turning the book over in my hands. “This was my favorite book when I was growing up. I even named Willow after it. Wait, there’s a note in here.”

Sadie had stuck an index card just inside of the book. It was the sort of card she sketched out her plot points on when she was writing a new book. On this one, she’d jotted a note:
It’s a first edition!

“A first edition,”I gasped. “Oh, my gosh!”

“May I see?”Dad asked.

I nodded and handed him the book. He paged through it for a moment and then smiled. A little sadly, I thought.

“I used to read this to you when you were little,”he said. “You’d ask for it every night.”

“I remember,”I said.

“You do?”he asked.

I nodded. Bedtime stories with my dad had been a ritual of my childhood. Well past the age when I could read myself, he’d read a chapter or two aloud to me every night before I went to sleep.

“I wonder what’s in here,”I said, turning my attention to the smaller box. It was wrapped in shiny red paper, with a large white bow around it. I pulled off the ribbon and tore at the paper, revealing a white jewelry box. I opened it up and gasped. Inside was a gold claddagh ring. It had the traditional Claddagh design: two hands holding a crown-topped heart.

“Wow,”I said. “It’s beautiful!”I tried it on and admired how it looked on my hand. “What do you think?”I asked, showing it to my dad.

“It’s beautiful,”he said. He sighed, and shook his head ruefully. “I’m glad your mother, at least, came through. What do you say? Would you like to go out shopping? You can pick out whatever you want. Wait, no, you hate shopping. I guess that wouldn’t be much of a treat for you.”

“I can’t anyway,”I said. “I’m going to meet Finn and Charlie at the bowling alley. It’s our birthday tradition.”

“That sounds like fun,”Dad said. He looked disappointed, though, and I had to steel myself against the inevitable surge of guilt this gave me. After all, it wasn’t my fault he’d forgotten my birthday.

Just then Hannah danced out onto the back deck, flush with excitement over her new SUV.

“There you are, Richard!”she said. “You haven’t seen my new car yet!”

My dad’s reaction to this was almost comical in its horror, as the stark contrast of how differently Hannah and I had been treated on our birthdays dawned on him. Hannah had gotten a huge party and an expensive new car, whereas no one had even remembered mine.

“Right,”he said, swallowing hard and looking from Hannah to me. “Um . . . Hannah, do you know what today is?”

“It’s new car day!”Hannah cheered.

“Ha ha,”Dad laughed weakly. “It’s also Miranda’s birthday.”

Hannah stared at me. “Are you serious? Why didn’t you say anything?”Her tone was almost accusing, as though I’d planned this just to annoy her.

I shrugged. “I didn’t know I had to,”I said.

“Oh. That sucks that everyone forgot.”Hannah frowned for a minute and then her face brightened with an idea. “I know what’ll cheer you up! Let’s go for a ride in my new car!”

I was glad I wasn’t staying at the beach house for dinner. The atmosphere there was oppressive. In his guilt over having forgotten my birthday, Dad was being overly solicitous toward me, and, in turn, seething with anger at Peyton. As it turned out, Peyton had written my birthday down in her calendar. She’d sworn she hadn’t looked at it today. . . . But I don’t think my dad believed her. She lived by her calendar; it was the only place she was able to track all of her various beauty salon and spa appointments, tennis matches and lunches. Hannah was too jubilant over her new car to pay much attention to anyone else. But at every mention of the new car, my dad looked even more uncomfortable.

Here’s the thing: As the heiress to a mouthwash fortune, Peyton has a lot of money. My dad does not. I don’t know exactly what their money arrangements are, but I could safely presume that my dad’s salary as an architect didn’t go all that far. The mouthwash money had paid for the beach house and for Peyton’s extensive wardrobe and for the lavish lifestyle she insisted on. It had also paid for Hannah’s new car, of course. And I got the sense that my dad was suddenly uncomfortable with this. But I didn’t know what I could do about it.

“I’m so sorry, Miranda,”Dad said for the two hundredth time as he dropped me off at the bowling alley.

“I know. You don’t have to keep apologizing,”I said.

“Maybe we could have a redo next Saturday,”Dad suggested. “We could go out to dinner or have a party. Whatever you want.”

“I can’t next Saturday. I have a MATh competition. It’s in Orlando, so we probably won’t get back until late.”

“Oh.”Dad looked so crestfallen, I actually felt a little sorry for him. “But we have to do something to celebrate. I want to make it up to you.”

“Okay,”I said. “We’ll have dinner or something.”

Dad’s face cleared. “Good. How about tomorrow? I could make reservations at Swordfish.”

“For just the two of us?”I asked hopefully. I didn’t want to spend what was supposed to be my birthday dinner getting zinged by Peyton’s nasty barbs or having to listen to Hannah natter on endlessly about her car.

Dad opened his mouth to object—I knew how fond he was of his fantasy of the perfect family—but then he seemed to think better of it. “Okay. Just the two of us,”he said.

I knew it was a major concession.

I was happy to see that Finn and Charlie were already at the bowling alley, waiting for me by the shoe-rental window. I was less happy to see that Mitch was with them. He was, as usual, wearing far too much hair gel, and he was holding hands with Charlie.

“Hi,”I said, arching my eyebrows in surprise.

“Hi, Miranda,”Charlie sang out. “Happy birthday!”

“Thanks,”I said, looking from her to Mitch and then finally at Finn, who looked like he’d just swallowed a bug.

“Hi,”Finn said without enthusiasm. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks,”I said, my heart sinking. This was not going to be fun. Not at all. It was going to be awkward and difficult and—if Mitch and Charlie started up with the public displays of affection again—really uncomfortable.

“You guys have gotten your bowling shoes already?”I asked.

“Yep. Look, Mitch and I match,”Charlie said, pointing down at her feet. She beamed. “Isn’t that cute?”

“Um . . . yeah,”I said, turning away before she could see the revolted expression on my face.

I traded in my faded Jack Purcell canvas sneakers for bowling shoes, and then the four of us made our way over to one of the empty bowling alleys. There was one league playing. It was made up entirely of women over the age of seventy, all of whom were wearing lime green shirts. Otherwise, we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

“So how has your birthday been so far?”Charlie asked.

“Pretty rotten,”I said.

“Why?”

“Everyone forgot,”I said. “Well, everyone but Sadie. She sent me this ring.”

I showed off my new Claddagh ring, which Charlie admired. Then she frowned. “What do you mean everyone forgot?”

“Dad, Peyton, Hannah. None of them remembered.”

Charlie gasped, and even Finn looked shocked.

“They forgot it was your birthday?”Charlie asked.

“Dude, that sucks. It’s like that movie,”Mitch said. He scratched at a pimple on his chin.

Charlie shook her head, her eyes narrowing with anger. “I can’t believe they did that to you. Well, just you wait, we’ll make up for it. This will be the best birthday bowling night in the history of birthday bowling nights.”

But it wasn’t the best birthday bowling night in the history of birthday bowling nights. It was the worst.

Charlie and Finn didn’t talk. Not at all. They sat on opposite sides of our booth, Finn sulkily withdrawn and Charlie perched on Mitch’s lap, cooing annoyingly down at him. I sat in the middle, insisting that the birthday girl should keep score, although really, I just wanted to be there to keep the peace if Finn and Charlie started bickering again. But the glacial silence between my two best friends made it unnecessary.

At first, I was frustrated. . . .But that quickly morphed into a simmering anger. Couldn’t they pretend to get along for a single night for my sake? Wasn’t it bad enough that my so-called family had ruined my birthday? Did my friends really have to make it worse?

Plus, I couldn’t bowl to save my life. I’ve never been a great bowler—Finn is the really talented bowler of our group—but I was stinking up the joint worse than usual. Every ball I threw ended up in the gutter. Over and over again.

“Shoot,”I muttered under my breath, as the purple-and-black mottled ball I’d selected veered to the left and shot by the pins without knocking a single one down. “I guess you win, Finn. Another game?”

I thought it was a rhetorical suggestion. We always stayed for a second round, and had only bowled one round of ten frames. But to my surprise, Finn stood up.

“I have to get home.”

“Why?”I asked.

“Curfew,”Finn said.

Which I knew was a lie. First of all, Finn doesn’t have a curfew. Second, it was only seven o’clock.

“You’re not really leaving now, are you?”I asked.

Finn nodded and shot a grim look at Charlie, who was still perched on Mitch’s lap. They were kissing, oblivious to the world around them.

“Happy birthday, M,”Finn said. He held up his fist, and, after hesitating, I sighed, and bumped my fist against his.

“Thanks,”I said. “And thanks for my present.”

Finn had given me a bobble head greyhound figurine and a new writing journal. Charlie had given me a T-shirt that said LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE on the front, and had a picture of a round yellow ball-shaped girl underneath.

“I was going to get you a T-shirt that read I ONLY DATE BRITS, but I thought under the circumstances you’d prefer this one,”Charlie had joked when I opened it.

“Later,”Finn now said.

He waved and turned to leave. I sat back down with a sigh. Charlie and Mitch continued to kiss.