Geek Charming (18 page)

“You mean you
made
this?” I asked, impressed, as I nibbled at my samosa.

She nodded proudly. “Yes, I did. That Introduction to Upholstering class I took at the Learning Annex was worth every penny.” She pointed at the couch. “I got that at the Santa Monica flea market. Don’t worry—I made sure to have it de-flea’d.”

Was it my imagination or were the backs of my legs starting to itch?

Although I had worried that, as a mother of a geek, Sandy might wear mom jeans and have a bad perm and no sense of humor, it turned out that she was
so
cool. Most of my friends’ moms were so busy with shopping and charity events that I knew them about as well as I knew Juan, the barista at the Starbucks I stopped at every morning on my way to school. Within five minutes of sitting with her, Sandy had told me her entire life story—how, like me, she had grown up in Beverly Hills before she went to UCLA and married Josh’s father, who was a law-school student, and became a Brentwood housewife until Josh’s dad came home one night and told her he was leaving her for Amber. And how she then had found herself with almost no money and had to move here, but soon discovered she was a lot happier than when she had been rich even if she couldn’t afford to shop at Saks anymore. It was a very inspirational story, like something you’d see on a Lifetime Television Original Movie.

“So what about you, Dylan?” Sandy asked as she rocked in the chair. “What kind of life do you envision for yourself in the years to come?”

Wow. This family was really into the deeper questions of life.

“Um, you know, I guess I sort of see myself having the life
you
had—not this part, but the Brentwood part,” I replied. “You know, the part with the credit cards.”

She laughed. “Well, if that’s what you want, then I hope you get it. However, I just want you to know that sometimes when you get close to them, you find that things are a lot different than they look from the outside.”

Like Josh,
I thought as I reached for another samosa. So what if people were gossiping about my friendship with Josh? Geekiness wasn’t a communicable disease like mono. Maybe geeks didn’t have a lot of fashion sense, or social skills, but they were people, too, and they had as much of a right to be at Castle Heights as I did. In fact, maybe I would make that my platform for my prom campaign: trying to bridge the gap between the geeks and the popular kids. I’d be an ambassador, like those actresses who travel to third-world countries and adopt babies. Plus, I myself was a living, breathing example that geekiness was something that could be outgrown and overcome. I mean, if anyone was qualified to help the geeks of the world mainstream into a regular social life, it was me.

Omigod—I had found my hobby!

“I’m back,” Josh called out as he ran into the room, looking like he had just run the six-hundred-yard dash. His face was all sweaty, his
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
T-shirt was sticking to his body, and his glasses were crooked.

Not only did I have a hobby, but my first rocking chair, so to speak, was standing right in front of me.

 

Dinner was incredible. I know I tried to only have carbs one night every other weekend, but that night I just couldn’t help myself. Everything was just so good—especially the naan
,
this Indian bread that looks like pizza dough. Plus, since Sandy had cooked everything herself, it would’ve been rude not to have seconds. And, in the case of something called chana masala
—
chickpeas cooked in this yummy tomato cream sauce—thirds.

“And then there was the time that we took Josh and his friends to the movies for his fifth-birthday party—” Sandy was saying as we ate dessert. I couldn’t believe there was room in my stomach for more food, but seeing that I had eaten one cupcake and three-quarters of a piece of pie, it seemed that there was.

“—and there was this short guy in the audience with glasses,” Josh cut in.

Sandy smiled at him. “So Josh got up and walked up to him and tugged on his sleeve and said—”

“‘Are you Woody Allen?’” he finished.

The two of them cracked up. Watching them, it was obvious they really did enjoy being with each other. I know Daddy loved me, but on the rare occasions
we
ate dinner together, he always had one eye on the newspaper or the television.

“So was it Woody Allen?” I asked.

Josh shook his head. “No. It was an accountant from the Valley.”

“But he was very sweet,” said Sandy. “He gave me his card and told me to call if I needed help with my taxes.” As she stood up and started walking toward the kitchen, she stopped in front of Josh and ruffled his hair. “Even back then, I could see that Josh would stop at nothing to achieve his dream.” She reached down and started covering his head with kisses. “My little filmmaker.”

“Mom,” he said, pushing her off. He was trying to look embarrassed, but I could see from the small smile on his face that he liked it. They seemed so happy.

Even when it was time to do the dishes and there was no dishwasher.

“I want to thank you for letting Josh do this film,” Sandy said as she handed me a plate to dry while Josh was in the other room trying to fix her laptop that she had spilled green tea on earlier that afternoon. “He’s been having so much fun. And I think it will really help his chances of getting a scholarship.”

“Well, a promise is a promise, so it’s not like I could have ever not followed through,” I replied. “And it’s been fun.”

She stuck her head out of the kitchen to make sure Josh wasn’t nearby. “I know I’m biased because I’m his mother, but even if I weren’t, it’s just that I think he’s a terrific kid and it breaks my heart that he spends most of his time at the movies or on the computer. Sure, years from now when he’s won his third Academy Award, it probably won’t bother me as much”—she smiled—“but I just wish he were in situations more often where he might meet some . . .”

“Girls?” I asked.

She smiled. “Exactly.” She washed a mug before handing it to me to dry. Drying dishes was actually very relaxing. Maybe I’d suggest to Marta that she stop using the dishwasher so that we could have some nice bonding time together. “And in addition to Josh being a bona fide genius—we had his IQ tested when he was in kindergarten and he scored a hundred and fifty-five—he also has such a delightful sense of humor. I really do think he’s going to be the next Woody Allen. Less neurotic, obviously, because of the therapy I insisted he have after the divorce, but just as clever.”

“Mom. What are you
doing
?!” Josh yelped. We turned around from the sink to see him standing there. From the fact that his face was so red, it was obvious he had heard more than enough to know Sandy was trying to do the hard sell of him being good boyfriend material. Little did they know that when I was done with him, thanks to my new hobby, he’d be a
great
boyfriend. Not for me, obviously. But for someone else.

“Oh, hi, honey. We’re just having a little girl talk,” Sandy replied with a smile. “You didn’t tell me what a wonderful conversationalist Dylan is.”

I had barely been able to get in two words, but it was nice to know that she was able to tell that about me. Maybe she had taken an Intro to Psychicdom class at some point.

“Come on, Dylan,” he said. “There’s a DVD I want to lend you that I think you’d like.”

I followed him to his bedroom, which, like the other rooms in the house, wasn’t all that big, but the way he had decorated the red walls—with lots of movie posters and framed record-album covers—gave it a funky feel. On the wall across from his bed was a bookshelf filled from top to bottom with DVDs. “Wow. Have you actually watched all of these?” I asked.

He nodded.

I walked over and started checking the movies out. “It’s like being at Blockbuster,” I said. Not only were they in alphabetical order, but they were divided into genres: comedy, action, drama, horror. It was funny—Josh may have been kind of messy with his appearance, but when it came to anything having to do with movies, he was annoyingly neat.

He pulled out a DVD case and handed it to me. “Here.”

“What is it?”

“
Manhattan
. Woody’s other true masterpiece.”

“What’s it about?”

“About two opposites who fall in love,” he replied.

“But that’s what
Annie Hall
’s about. He’s not very creative when it comes to thinking up plots, is he?”

He looked at me like I had just killed his dog. That is, if he hadn’t been deathly afraid of animals because of the incident with the guinea pig and
had
a dog. “It’s a classic story line,” he snapped. I was beginning to get that you could never, ever, dis Woody Allen in front of him.

“Okay.” I shrugged, walking over to examine his other bookshelf, which was filled with mostly books about movies and biographies about directors.

He took out his camera. “Can I film you? It might be interesting to include some footage of you out of your environment. You know, Dylan-in-a-Film-Geek-World stuff.”

“You’re not
that
geeky,” I said to the camera.

He peeked his head around and looked at me, amazed. “I’m sorry. You’re going to have to say that last line again because what I
thought
I heard you say was that I wasn’t that geeky.”

I shrugged and turned so that he wasn’t shooting my right side. “You’re not. I mean, yes, you have some serious geek tendencies, but they’re not, like, fatal or anything.”

I could tell by the way that he quickly burrowed his head back behind the camera that he was all embarrassed.

“You know, Josh, I don’t know if you realize this, but you have this annoying habit of hiding behind that thing when you’re trying to avoid something.”

“I do not,” he replied, lifting it up even higher so even more of his face was covered.

“You so do,” I said. “Between the camera and your inhaler—”

He put the camera down. “I told you—”

“—your lungs didn’t develop properly because you were premature and that’s probably why you have asthma. I know, I know.” I held out my hand. “Just let me hold on to it for a while,” I challenged.

His eyes widened like I had just told him I was canceling his Netflix subscription. “What?”

“I’m not going to take it home or anything. Just while I’m here. I mean, if you’re not dependent on it, it shouldn’t be a big deal, right?”

He started straightening the stuff on his desk. “I don’t know where it is,” he lied.

“It’s where it always is—in the pocket of your jeans,” I said.

Busted, he reached in and took it out. “Okay, but you better remember to give it back to me before you leave,” he warned. “The Santa Ana winds are going to be really strong tonight, and because of my lungs, I tend to cough a lot.” He started fake-coughing. “As you can see, it’s starting to get bad already.”

I rolled my eyes as I took the inhaler and shoved it into my own pocket. It was a good thing he was going to be a director and not an actor. “Okay, now you can go back to hiding behind your camera,” I said.

He picked it up and started filming me again as I started fiddling with his Luke Skywalker figure on the shelf. “So have
you
ever been in love?” I asked.

“With someone I’ve actually met in person?”

I nodded.

I could see him slump. “No,” came his muffled reply.

“But you’ve been in love with people you
haven’t
met in person?” I asked, almost breaking off Luke’s arm as I tried to get it to move the light-wand thingie.

He shrugged as he walked over and took Luke out of my hands, placing him back in his original position on the shelf. “Yeah. You know, girls I’ve had e-relationships with and stuff. Girls I’ve met on MySpace and Facebook.” I saw him move his hand toward his pocket. “Hey, you still have my inhaler, right?”

I patted my own pocket. “Yup. Right here. Interesting that you get nervous when we start to talk about
girls
,” I remarked.

“I’m not nervous,” he said.

“Whatever. Anyway, I think it’s kind of hard to fall in love with someone if you’ve never met them in person,” I said, flipping through the cases. I’m sorry—I know he knew more about movies than most
Jeopardy!
contestants, but there wasn’t
one
silly romantic comedy on any of the three shelves. Mostly they were super old, like from the 1970s, so all the actors on the covers were dressed in hideous clothes with even more hideous hairstyles.

“Not if you have a good imagination.” He shrugged.

“So are you in an e-relationship now?” I asked.

He took the DVDs that I had taken out of the bookcase and realphabetized them. “Nope. There was this girl from Boston named Heidi but last week she wrote me that she thinks she might be gay, so that’s probably not going to work.” After he was done, he picked the camera back up and started hiding again. “And there’s a girl here that I’m kind of interested in anyway,” he mumbled from behind the lens. The last part was said so softly a normal person would have missed it, but because I have bionic ears when it comes to anything that’s considered romantic gossip, I heard it loud and clear.

I stood up and yanked the camera away from him. “Omigod—who?!” I demanded. “Does she go to Castle Heights?”

He nodded, one hand going to his pocket while the other grasped at the air toward the camera.

“OmiGOD,” I squealed louder, bouncing on his bed before leaping up again. “You have to tell me who it is! Is she a senior?”

He nodded again and started to cough. “Can I have my inhaler back now?”

“Josh, you’re okay. You’re going to be fine,” I said in an authoritative voice, like you hear ambulance drivers use with car crash victims on TV. “So, do I know her?”

He nodded a third time. “Please can I have it back?”

I sighed and fished it out of my pocket and handed it over.