Geek Girl (2 page)

We head over to the corner where a few of our “kind” stand, the few willing to brave something as mainstream as a school dance. Admittedly, it’s mostly because it’s a good place to gather while we figure out whose house we can go party at tonight. And tonight it probably has a little to do with the fact that they know my plan and are here to watch me begin my game.

I search Trevor out almost immediately—not hard to do with the nerd herd gathered all together. Varying degrees of nerd-dom huddle with one another, none dancing.

“There’s your boyfriend,” Ella says sarcastically, following my gaze.

“Watch,” I say, beelining for him. The dance is in full swing, sweaty teenagers bouncing to the beat.

“Hey!” I call. He doesn’t look. I tap his arm, and he turns, surprised when he sees
me
in front of him. He’d probably sooner expect to see a talking zebra in front of him.

“Wanna dance?” I ask with what I hope is a seductive look. Now, I think, is when his expression will turn to disgust and he’ll turn away, making my goal harder—and giving my friends amusement.

But he doesn’t.

“Sure,” he agrees, ignoring his friends who
do
wear distasteful looks. I’m surprised he agrees, but I manage to hide it behind a smile meant to turn him to jelly. He doesn’t turn to jelly, though he does have a look of vague puzzlement in his eyes. He follows me out to the dance floor, and we begin moving. He’s not a bad dancer.

I decide to let him go after the first dance, the old attack-and-retreat strategy, and back up a step, intent obvious. He’s flustered, unsure what to do.

“Thanks,” he says as I start to turn away.

He just
thanked
me,
I think scathingly.

Dork.

But I refrain from rolling my eyes and smile again, reaching out to lightly squeeze his arm. He still doesn’t turn to jelly, but something definitely changes in his eyes.

I keep an eye on him for a while, making sure he’s aware of it. I’m always standing in his line of vision, always watching him, making sure he’s aware of my attention. He turns away first every time, confused, and maybe a little nervous by my unexpected and unprecedented attention.

“How goes the plan?” Beth asks as she walks over to me, watching as Trevor once again glances my way to see if I’m still watching.

“I have him wondering,” I tell her.

“You have him scared,” she corrects.

“Maybe a little,” I concede. “But mostly curious, I think. And you know what they say about curiosity.”

“He’s not a cat,” she says.

“Sure he is. They all are.”

She gives me an odd look. I’m about to explain that an
animal
by any other name . . . but then someone calls me.

“Hey, Jen.”

I turn, annoyed at whoever is pulling my attention from my target, and see Seth. Seth is a bit of an enigma to me. I think he has a thing for me, but he refuses to act on it. He’s definitely my type: long, stringy, black hair, tight black pants riding low, black eyeliner, and pierced ears, tongue, and lip. He is tall and skinny and weird. He’s usually high. Seth is most definitely my type.

“What’s up, Seth?” I ask dismissively, turning back to look at Trevor again—only to see he’s looking my way, watching me. I give a slight smile; he flushes at being caught and turns back toward his own friends. I mentally compare him to Seth.

Night and day.

A slow song comes on, and I intensify my stare, moving toward him. One of his geek followers looks meaningfully in my direction. Compelled, curious, Trevor turns my way, and I lock gazes with him as I walk toward him, leaving Seth and Beth behind me, one corner of my mouth lifting at their rhyming names. Maybe they should hook up.

Trevor seems unsure as I continue my deliberate path toward him but stands as I come near. I tip my head toward the dance floor in invitation without speaking, and he follows me without answering. He places his arms lightly around my waist, holding me at a respectable distance. I’m surprised by the solidity of his shoulders beneath my hands—not soft at all.

I push closer. He backs up a little.

“Good song,” I say quietly.

He shakes his head, indicating he can’t hear me. I lean in toward him and, afraid of being rude, he leans down to hear what I’m saying.

“I like this song,” I say, though I’ve never heard it before and have no idea who’s singing.

“Yeah, me too,” he says, and I hold on tightly, refusing to let him back away again. Once more afraid of being discourteous, he doesn’t push me away, though he is stiff. Such a nerd.

He smells good, clean.

As soon as the song ends, his hands drop. I hold on a little longer, then slowly draw my arms away, dragging them down his chest, which causes that change in his eyes again.

“Thanks,” I say huskily, leaning in toward him again, beating him to the politeness, but my thanks is definitely not the same as his, and he knows it.

I turn and walk toward my friends, swaying the hips a little, and they grin at me.

“He still watching?” I ask.

“Oh yeah,” Beth says.

“What did you do to him?” Ella asks. “He hasn’t moved. He looks like—”

“—a lovesick puppy dog,” they finish together, breaking down in giggles.

Seth doesn’t look happy. Oh well . . . you snooze, you lose. Now he’ll have to wait his turn because I’m going to have to focus all my attention on my new goal. And the prize, I add mentally, fingering my bare lip. I turn back to face Trevor, who’s still watching me, looking a little shell-shocked. I’m still fingering my lip, and his eyes home in on this action. I grin at him, sweetly but with a little tramp thrown in for good measure.

This seems to unfreeze him, and he turns quickly away. I watch him as he goes to his friends and says something urgently. They are surprised and talk back a bit frantically. But he shakes his head firmly and walks away from them as they look after him in confusion. As he nears the door, he looks back at me. He doesn’t look happy. Before I can smile, he turns away and is gone.

A slow grin crosses my face.

I turn on the stalking at school, going out of my way to be in his path, watching him and smiling at him. He’s unsure but courteous, so he smiles back, if a bit hesitantly. His smiles are always small and brief. If I’m with any of my friends, he seems intimidated and will avoid eye contact altogether, no matter how hard I try.

But if I’m alone, then he makes eye contact, and though his smiles aren’t exactly what I might hope for, at least they’re there. He’s paying attention. His eyes reflect his confusion.

My friends are all amused—except for Seth, of course.

After a couple of weeks of this, I turn it up and begin saying hi. The first time I do this, he actually stops in his tracks, stunned. I keep walking. But the next time it isn’t quite so shocking, and the geek says hi back—though he sounds unsure and only says it when I’m mostly past him. Wouldn’t want to be impolite, I guess. That sensibility is something I can use in my quest, though.

On a Friday afternoon after I’ve gotten him used to saying hi as I walk past and smile at him, I walk right up to him while he stands at his open locker. His locker is, of course, neatly organized and clean, with his many books stacked tidily on the shelf. There are no pictures or anything that would make it personal. And definitely nothing like the chaos that is my locker.

“Hey,” I say. He looks at me, stunned into stillness.

“Wanna go to a party on Saturday?” I ask quickly before he can morph into panic. “With me?”

He’s speechless. Finally, after long seconds, he gives a little head shake, blinking slowly.

“Sorry, can’t.” He turns back to his locker, unfrozen by his words, pulling books down for his weekend of homework. “I’m having some friends over. Movies, snacks, that kind of thing,” he says as if he can’t stop the words. His brows pull together in a thinking kind of perplexity.
Good excuse,
I think, but then he surprises me.

“You can come if you want,” he says nonchalantly, still not looking my way. But his baffled exhalation gives him away.

No, I don’t want, absolutely not. Give me a break. Spend my only free weekend night hanging out with the Geek Bunch? However, I can’t give him a reason to doubt my intentions toward him. He turns to look at me, about to retract his invitation if his drawn brows are any indication.

“Sure, why not?” I say quickly. I can tell he’s astonished, but he won’t retract now. He’s way too well-mannered for that. Instead, he gives me his address, printing it neatly on a piece of paper, clearly doubting I’ll show up.

“See you then.” I flutter the paper, grin at him, and start to walk away.

“Uh, Jennifer?” He’s clearly uncomfortable using my name.

“Jen,” I say.

“What?”

“My name—I go by Jen.”

“Oh, okay. Jen.” He shrugs, discomfited, and clears his throat. “Did you want . . . I mean, don’t you want to know what time to come?”

“Oh, yeah, of course.”

“Um, about seven?”

“See you at seven then, Trev.”

“Trevor,” he says. “I go by Trevor.”

I smile seductively, and he flushes, turning away.

⊕⊗⊕

Beth and Ella are laughing so hard tears roll down their cheeks when I tell them.

“I want to be a fly on the wall at
that
party,” Beth says.

“If you can call it a party,” Ella adds, which makes them laugh even harder.

“Have fun,” they call sarcastically, wiping their eyes.

I finger my lip where they will soon be putting hardware and ignore them.

⊕⊗⊕

On Saturday I walk to Trevor’s house, a perfect little family split-level with dormers, window boxes blooming with spring flowers, and a lawn mowed into perfect little stripes. I push the doorbell beneath a cutesy little plaque that reads:
Hoffman Family, Established 1980.

Gag.

Mrs. Brady/Cleaver herself answers the door, freshly rolled out of an old sitcom. She has pants on instead of a dress, true, but she
is
wearing an apron, her hair and makeup perfectly in place, subdued, a string of pearls at her throat completing the picture-perfect image. She can’t quite hide the flash of shock and disgust on her face when she sees the thing that’s standing on her porch, but she recovers quickly.

“Can I help you?” she asks with a hesitant smile.

“Yeah. Trev here?”

“Who?” She looks genuinely confused.

“Trevor?”

“Oh.” She’s at a loss. “Um, well. Please come in.”

She stands back and lets the wolf into the henhouse.

“Is he expecting you?” She sounds doubtful.

I shrug. “I guess so. He invited me.”

“Oh.” Pause. I try not to grin at her discomfort. “Wait here. I’ll go get him.”

She walks away, uncertain of leaving me unattended for even a few minutes. Good. A nervous mom becomes overprotective, sparking rebellion in a teen. I know this from experience and observation. This could definitely work in my favor.

I stand in the foyer, looking into the small living room next to me.

The room is neat and tidy, overpowered by the baby grand piano, which takes up most of the space. Besides the piano, there’s a curio cabinet full of antique-looking garbage, a bookcase, and a small blue-flowered sofa with a doily—a
doily
—draped over the back of it.

The bookcase is filled with smart-people-type books from what I can see: Hemingway, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Steinbeck. Self-help, psychology, and philosophy books as well. This could be tougher than I thought. Or maybe not. I knew Trevor was smart when I chose him, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by his home reading material—and the décor seems just right for a nerd.

Trevor comes around the corner, an oddly welcome familiar face amid all this perfection. But then, I suppose he
is
part of the perfection. He only hesitates a second, so small it’s
almost
unnoticeable, when he sees me.

“Hey,” he says, his voice reflecting the fact that he didn’t think I would really come.

“I didn’t think you’d really come,” he voices my thought.

His honesty is too much, and I almost roll my eyes.

“You invited me.” I put on a slightly hurt, chagrined look. “Should I go?”

“No . . . no, of course not. I’m glad you came.” He recovers nicely, though he’s not quite sincere in his words. “We’re downstairs. Come on down.”

“Okay.” I act uncertain though I’m not. I knew he’d cave.

He reaches out to place his hand in the small of my back to guide me, unthinkingly, ever polite, but quickly retracts it as if burned when contact is made. I pretend not to notice, smiling inside. Keeping him off balance is a good thing—helps me keep the upper hand.

We walk through the perfect, clean kitchen where Mrs. Brady/Cleaver stands, wiping imaginary spots on the counter. She’s actually spying on her baby—I know the type.

“Mom, this is Jen.”

“We’ve met,” she says with a fake smile, and I don’t point out that I didn’t ever tell her my name, nor did she tell me hers. We go down the narrow stairs tucked behind the wall with the stainless steel stove while Mrs. Brady/Cleaver watches me openly.

Downstairs are two of Trevor’s dork friends.

“You know Jim and Brian, right?” he asks me. I know their faces but never had a reason to even want to know their names. I nod anyway. They both stare at me, Brian with a tortilla chip lifted halfway to his mouth, which is now dripping salsa on his shirt, as if a three-headed alien has just come into their midst. They’re sitting on a big, overstuffed couch in front of an enormous flat-screen TV, watching some kind of robot cartoon.

I follow Trevor to the wet bar behind the couch. It’s covered with boy snacks: chips and salsa, pizza, pretzels, and little hotdogs drenched in barbecue sauce.

“Go ahead and eat whatever you want,” Trevor tells me. “There’re drinks in the fridge. Can I get you something?”