Geek Charming (33 page)

I flopped down on his bed. “Thank God
that
crisis is over.” I sighed.

“But, Dylan?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you get off my bed? Or at least not put your head on my pillow? Your hair’s still wet and I don’t want to catch a cold when I go to sleep.”

“I know—because your lungs never fully developed because you were born premature,” I said as I stood up. “And now moving on: so Amy’s your crush, huh?”

He blushed as he started straightening the covers on his bed.

“I think you two make a cute couple.”

He stopped and looked at me. “You do? I thought you hated her.”

I shrugged. “She’s not so bad.” I looked at my watch. It was only nine. “Obviously it’s too late to go to Fall Fling—and since those school-dance things are so lame, why would you even want to?—but maybe you should call her and see if she wants to grab a slice of banana-cream pie at The Apple Pan or something.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah, why not?”

From the way his hand hovered over his inhaler, the idea terrified him. “I mean, you talked to her on the phone the other day.”

“But I haven’t spent time with her
in person
! Doing that would be like . . . a
date
or something!”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Josh—it’s time. You can do it. I know you can.”

“You think so?”

I nodded. “I know so. Plus, she’s already into you!”

“She is?”

I rolled my eyes. “She called you and asked you to Fall Fling—how many more neon lights do you need?”

“Oh. I guess you have a point.”

I reached for his hand. “Seriously, Josh—you’re, like, a total . . .
prince
.”

“I am?”

“You are.”

“Thanks,” he said shyly as his face turned as red as the comforter on his bed. He started to reach for his inhaler again, but then thought better of it and stood up straight. It turned out he was pretty tall. “But what are you going to do tonight?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe watch
Hannah and Her Sisters,
if someone will loan it to me.”

“I have something even better you might like,” Josh said as he walked over to his computer.

“Better than
Hannah and Her Sisters
?” I teased. “I thought you said that was Woody’s last great midcareer masterpiece.”

He popped a DVD out of his computer and, after carefully placing it in a case, handed it to me. “It is. But this is
my
first early-career masterpiece. It’s the documentary. The
real
version.”

I took it from him and smiled. “Thanks.” I walked over to his closet and picked out a pair of khakis and a sweater from The Gap that not only complemented his eyes but made him look like he had some upper-body strength, and put it down on the bed. “Call me tomorrow and let me know how it goes. Or if you need advice or something in the middle of the date, just call me from the restaurant.”

“Okay,” he said. “Hey, Dylan?”

“Yeah?” I said before I left the room.

He tossed me the inhaler. “You’re my best friend, too.”

 

When I got home, I settled into bed with an Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink Special, and in between texting Josh through his first date/inhalerless panic whenever Amy got up to go to the ladies’s room, I watched what, in my humble opinion, was an Academy Award-winning documentary. Okay, yes, I had some areas to work on in terms of dealing with people, but hey, nobody’s perfect. And, frankly, who
wants
to be? If you ask me, perfection is boring. I’d much rather be one of those girls that guys call “complicated.”

Later, as I turned out the light to go to sleep, I thought about how right that guy on
Oprah
had been that day when he said that sometimes a crisis really
is
an opportunity. In this case it had been an opportunity to see that sometimes things weren’t what they looked to be—like Asher, and Amy Loubalu, and, most importantly, Josh. I really had meant it when I told him he was a prince. A bit on the geekier side of princehood, maybe, but definitely a prince.

 

By the next week everyone at Castle Heights knew about the geek prince and his new princess, and instead of comments along the lines of “She’s dating
him
?” everyone was genuinely happy for them. Josh and Amy were inseparable. Actually, the
three
of us were inseparable. At first I felt like a fifth wheel, but they seemed to really want me to sit with them outside at lunch (my Ramp days were long gone), and because I didn’t have any other friends, it was either that or continue eating in the bathroom. The goofy perma-smiles on their faces may have bordered on nauseating at times, but because they were so sweet (not just to me, but to everyone, because that’s the kind of people they were), I was happy for them rather than jealous. It was weird—even though it had been years since Amy and I had been friends, we picked up right where we had left off and it felt like no time at all had passed. I even started becoming friends with Whitney Lewin, who, it turned out, wasn’t stuck-up at all—just shy. Having her to hang out with came in handy when Josh and Amy wanted to hang out alone.

Because of an incident at Fall Fling that may or may not have happened concerning Rachel Trebecnik, a bottle of peppermint schnapps she stole from her parents’ liquor cabinet, and Mr. Marino, the boys’ soccer coach, I soon became old news. At first it was weird to fly so low below the radar, but it was also liberating. I mean, I got to do things I
never
would have done back when I was the most popular girl in school—like wear sweats in public or show up to school with unwashed hair and limited makeup. I only did that twice, because, you know, I’m
me
, but still . . .

One of the best things about just being one of the crowd was that I had the time to really get to know myself because I no longer had people trying to get my attention all the time. For instance, I never would’ve found out that I liked singing show tunes if I hadn’t lost everything and had no social life and therefore had nothing better to do than spend three hours on a Saturday in Ari’s car when we all road-tripped down to San Diego to go to the Seventh Annual Ukrainian Film Festival.

Actually, the day of the Ukrainian Film Festival ended up being a really important one for both Josh and me. Not only was it the day that Josh found out he had gotten early acceptance at USC, but when I turned around at the refreshment stand that afternoon after paying for my popcorn, I bumped smack into Roger and spilled it all over him and now he’s my boyfriend! He’s currently studying molecular biology at UC San Diego, but that’s just to make his parents happy. What he really wants to be is a writer/director, which is why he just got a job at a video store. People might say I’m biased, but I happen to think he’s
beyond
talented. Like Woody Allen-level talented. The other day he let me read the first ten pages of his new screenplay about a character from a video game who turns into a human and starts killing people, and it’s brilliant. He says it’s because I’m such a powerful muse, which I think is just beyond romantic.
And
unlike some people, he doesn’t move his lips when he reads. The distance makes it hard, but we’ve been seeing each other every weekend. At the moment he’s still geek-hot rather than hot-hot, but when he comes up on Saturday I’m taking him shopping at The Grove.

Not that I don’t already adore him just the way he is. But still, you know, I’m
me
.