Revenge of the Geek (8 page)

“Really? What his name?”I asked.

I was a little surprised that Nora had a boyfriend. She was so shy, it was hard to imagine her getting up the nerve to talk to a guy, much less go out on a date with one.

“Marcus,”Nora said. She sighed. “He’s the reason my mom shipped me down here, although she denies it.”

“Why? Your mom doesn’t like him?”

“She’s just a snob. Marcus comes from a pretty rough neighborhood, and he’s been living on his own ever since his mom got busted for stealing someone’s credit card. He’s actually a great guy—very smart, very ambitious—but my mom thinks that anyone who doesn’t live in a suburban house with two cars in the driveway is unworthy of her daughter,”Nora said. She rolled her eyes in disgust.

“That’s really tough,”I said sympathetically. “Are you and Marcus staying together?”

“Absolutely,”Nora said, lifting her chin. “I love him, and he loves me.”

It was the first real spunk I’d seen from Nora. With her eyes glittering and her cheeks flushed with emotion, she looked almost pretty.

“Good for you,”I said. “What will your mom say when she finds out you’re still together?”

Nora shrugged. “Who knows? I try to avoid talking to her.”

We ate some popcorn, and I told Nora about my first assignment for
The Ampersand
and Charlie’s advice that I needed to impress my editor.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to write an interesting article about a challenge facing student athletes. Geek High doesn’t have any student athletes. So who cares about what problems they face?”I said.

“Does it have to be about a problem?”Nora asked.

“No. Candace—that’s the editor—said I could write whatever I want, as long as it has a student-athlete theme. She said I could do an interview or something. But I don’t even have anyone I can interview,”I said, rubbing my temples in frustration.

“Didn’t you just say that your boyfriend is an athlete? Lacrosse, right?”Nora said. “Why don’t you interview him?”

I stared at her. It was so obvious. How could I have missed it? Of course I should interview Dex. In fact, he was the perfect person to interview. Instead of a bland, boring jock story, I could write a piece about the ups and downs of moving across the country to attend boarding school on a sports scholarship. And he’s from Orange Cove, so it would have a local connection.

“Oh, my gosh. Nora, you’re a genius,”I said, shaking my head.

Nora giggled. “That’s good, considering where I go to high school.”

I grinned back at her. “I owe you big,”I said. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of Dex right away.”

“Sometimes it helps to bounce story ideas off other people,”Nora said modestly. “I used to write for the newspaper at my old school, and we were always helping each other out. By the way, how do you get to be on
The Ampersand
staff? Is there an informational meeting about it?”Nora asked. “I have experience.”

I shook my head. “The staff spots for writers are so competitive, they actually have a contest for them in the spring.”

Nora’s face fell. “That stinks.”

“The magazine wins a lot of national awards, so being able to write for it looks really good on college applications. That’s why they had to limit how many writers they have each year,”I explained. “But if you want, I bet you could work on layout. They’re always looking for people to do that.”

“Maybe,”Nora said without much enthusiasm.

I didn’t blame her. Layout seemed incredibly boring to me. I’d much rather create a story than figure out how to fit it onto a page.

“Maybe if you work on layout this year, you’ll be more likely to get one of the writer spots next year,”I suggested. “The editor in chief is the one who picks who’s going to be on the magazine for the upcoming year.”

“So basically you’re suggesting I shamelessly suck up to her,”Nora said.

“Basically,”I agreed.

Nora laughed. I liked her like this—relaxed, disarmed. She was nice, I decided. And we had a lot in common—parents who’d let us down, long-distance boyfriends. She stood and went to my window, which looked out on the ocean.

“Your house is amazing,”she said. “I can’t believe the view.”

“Thanks. Although it’s not really my house. It’s my stepmom’s.”

“Even so. You’re really lucky to live here,”Nora said.

“I am?”I said. “I mean, thanks.”

It was odd being envied for living here, especially since I’d been horrified when, a year earlier, Sadie had announced she was moving to London and that I’d have to move into the beach house until she returned at some indefinite date in the future. I glanced around the room, trying to look at it with a fresh perspective.

My room—which had once been the guest room—used to be very sterile and white, with low, uncomfortable furniture. But at the end of the summer, in a rare gesture of kindness, Peyton had redecorated it for me. The walls were now a pale blue and there was a thick white shag carpet on the floor. I had a new wrought-iron bed, dressed with a blue and lime green striped comforter, and a black writing desk to work at. I loved the way it had turned out.

“And it must be amazing to be right next to the beach,”Nora continued. “I’d be out there all the time.”

“Do you want to go out now? Willow needs to go for a walk, anyway,”I said.

Nora beamed at me. “Absolutely,”she said.

Chapter Eight

F
inn was gone by the time I got back from dropping Nora off at her grandmother’s condo. Avery was still at the beach house—I could hear her and Hannah in Hannah’s room, talking animatedly—so I steered clear of them and headed back to my bedroom. Willow was still there, fast asleep on her round bed, snoring softly.

I texted Dex: SKYPE?

A minute later, my phone chirped with Dex’s reply: SURE! GETTING ON NOW.

I opened my laptop and turned on Skype, and a moment later, Dex called.

“Hi,”I said excitedly when I saw him.

“Hey, you,”Dex said, grinning at me. “What are you up to?”

“I just got back from dropping off my friend Nora. She came over after school.”

“Do I know her?”

“No. She just moved here from Boston. She’s pretty cool,”I said. “How about you?”

“I just got back from afternoon practice,”Dex said. He was still wearing his lacrosse shirt and his-hair was damp. “Coach had us running intervals all afternoon. I’m beat.”

He didn’t look tired, though. His pale blue eyes were sparkling and his cheeks were flushed.

He looks happy
, I thought. Which was a good thing. I wanted him to be happy.

“Speaking of lacrosse, I need to ask you a favor,”I said.

“You need a lacrosse-related favor?”Dex asked, his brow wrinkling with confusion.

“Actually, yes. Yes, I do,”I said.

“Wait, let me guess: You’ve decided to start a girl’s lacrosse team at Geek High, and you want me to mentor you,”Dex said.

“Like that would ever happen,”I said.

“The starting-a-new-team part, or the me-mentoring-you part?”

“Both.”I smiled. “I’m so uncoordinated that if I tried running around while carrying a long stick and trying to catch a ball with it, something very bad would happen. Something that would end up with me—and probably half of my teammates—in the hospital. No, I don’t want to play lacrosse. I want to interview you for
The Ampersand
.”

“Me? Why?”

“I’ve been assigned to write a piece about student athletes. I thought I could focus the piece on you,”I said. Quickly, I added, “It was Nora’s idea.”

Dex nodded slowly. “Sure. I mean, I’m happy to help out, but I don’t know that I’d be all that interesting to your readers. Do they really want to read about our practices and drills and stuff?”

“No, it’ll be great. I’ll focus on what it’s like for you going away to boarding school on an athletic scholarship. You know—how you’re adjusting, getting used to a new team,”I said.

“Cool,”Dex said. “Do you want to interview me now?”

I shook my head. “No, I need to get a list of questions ready first.”

“Uh-oh. That sounds a little intimidating. Are you going to ask me hard-hitting questions about where I stand on foreign policy?”Dex teased me.

Before I could respond, though, there was a sudden ruckus on his end of the line. There were some loud whoops, the sound of a door slamming, and then a whole bunch of excited male voices.

“Come on, McConnell. We’re tired of waiting for your lazy butt,”one of the guys said.

“Yeah, we’re starving,”another said.

“What’s for dinner tonight?”a third asked.

“Meatloaf,”someone responded, to a general chorus of groans.

“Let’s order pizza instead,”someone suggested.

I couldn’t tell how many guys were in Dex’s dorm room. It sounded like his entire lacrosse team was there, although surely they couldn’t all fit. Dex was laughing and trying to keep his friends from grabbing his laptop. One of the guys—blond, pink-cheeked, and square-jawed, with eyebrows and eyelashes so blond, they were practically nonexistent—leaned over Dex’s shoulder, and peered at me through the computer screen.

“Who’s that?”he asked curiously, as though I were an animal exhibit at a zoo and couldn’t understand him. “Is that your girlfriend?”

Wolf whistles ensued, and more of the guys crowded around the screen to look at me. There were shouts of, “Hi, Dex’s girlfriend!”Being the object of such frank curiosity caused me to blush bright red, from my toes on up.

“Hi,”I said, with a little wave.

“She’s pretty cute,”one of the guys said, causing my cheeks to grow even hotter.

“She’s taken,”Dex told him. He smiled wryly at me. “Can I catch you later? It’s kind of impossible to talk right now.”

“Sure,”I said. “Go have dinner.”

“See you later,”Dex said.

“See you later,”I said.

“See you later,”some of the guys said.

Dex hung up, and his picture disappeared from my computer screen. I smiled to myself, even though I was feeling a small tug of sadness. I was glad Dex seemed happier, glad he was making friends. And I hadn’t really expected him to give up on Brown Academy and transfer back to Orange Cove. Quitting wasn’t Dex’s style. But, even so, it was hard not to wonder where he and I would end up, once we both accepted that his life was now up there, so far away from Orange Cove.

Thankfully, Avery didn’t stay for dinner. When I arrived in the kitchen, Peyton and Hannah were seated at the table, while my dad stood at the counter, carving a deli rotisserie chicken.

“Hi, honey,”Dad said.

“Hi,”I said, taking my seat.

“How was your day, Miranda?”Peyton asked.

I was still having a hard time adjusting to this new Peyton. For most of the time I’d known her, she’d treated me with, at best, cold indifference and, at worst, outright hostility. But her lack of enthusiasm for my presence in the beach house had started to cause a strain in her marriage to my dad. So over the summer, he and Peyton began seeing a marriage counselor. It seemed to be doing them a lot of good—they weren’t fighting nearly as much as they used to—and Peyton had been making a real effort to be nicer to me. We’d probably never be close, but as long as we were stuck living together, it was nice to have the hostilities ratcheted down.

“It was fine, thanks,”I said politely.

“I was just telling Mom and Richard about my new Web site,”Hannah said. She shook her hair back and secured it into a ponytail with an elastic.

“Is it up and running?”I asked.

“It will be soon. Finn said he’d have it ready by the end of the week,”Hannah said.

“How did you talk him into doing it for you?”I asked.

“I just asked nicely,”Hannah said.

“Hmph,”I said.

“What?”she asked.

“Finn doesn’t really know what it means to be nice,”I warned her. “You’d better double-check your Web site carefully once he’s done with it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d listed himself as the only eligible male for girls to date.”

“I thought Finn was still dating Phoebe McCleod,”Hannah said.

“He is. But even so, I wouldn’t put it past him,”I said.

Dad brought the carved chicken to the table.

“Dinner is served,”he said, settling the plate down with a flourish.

Along with the chicken, there was pasta tossed with Parmesan cheese and broiled asparagus. I was starving, and loaded up my plate. Hannah rolled her eyes and took about half as much food as I had, while Peyton speared a single asparagus stalk and piece of chicken the size of a half-dollar onto her plate. Peyton almost never ate. This bizarre ability to survive without ever eating was one of the reasons I’d long suspected her of being supernaturally evil.