Summer of the Geek (18 page)

“Come on, let’s go,” I said. I glanced back at the water once. Dex was still out there, riding his board and leaping through the air. Wendy was paddling out again on her surfboard, headed in his direction. And I was just standing on the beach, watching them, and feeling a million miles away.

“Are you coming?” Amelia asked.

“Yep,” I said, turning and following her across the hot sand to the boardwalk.

“I
’m home,” I called out, slamming the front door behind me.

My voice echoed in the empty foyer. A minute later, Willow came padding out, wiggling happily when she saw me.

“Hi, girl,” I said, patting her head. “Are you the only one home?”

“No, I’m here, too,” Hannah said, appearing from the back hallway. “Mom and Richard had an appointment with their marriage therapist, so Mom said we should order from Mario’s when we get hungry.”

“I’m hungry now,” I said.

“Big surprise. You’re always hungry,” Hannah said, turning and heading toward the kitchen.

“Didn’t they just go to see their therapist?” I asked, following her.

“She wants them to meet with her a few times a week,” Hannah said.

“Wow, they must be in even worse shape than we thought,” I said.

“They left right after Mom and I got home from the casting call,” Hannah said. She moved her hand over her shoulder, as though to flip back her hair—a habit she’d had as long as I’d known her—before remembering that her hair was now too short to flick. She instead tucked a tendril behind one ear. “Aren’t you going to ask me how it went?”

“Oh, right. I forgot. How did it go?” I asked, climbing into one of the high bar stools that were lined up by the granite- topped island.

“I got the job!” Hannah announced. “It was amazing! It was a catalogue shoot, but for amazing, totally high-end dresses. It was at this gorgeous house, and the backyard was all done up like there was a big party going on, and I had to act like I was a mysterious woman who was gate-crashing the party. No one knew who I was, but everyone was intrigued by me. I was like a modern-day Cinderella.”

“Wow, and you were able to act all of that out?” I was impressed. I’d thought modeling was just standing in front of the camera.

“I hope so! I mean, I was mostly just posing, but that’s what the photographer—his name was Jojo, and he was super nice—told me I should be thinking about,” Hanna said. She hopped up onto the stool next to me and sighed happily. “It was amazing, even better than I imagined. Although it was sort of hard to hold certain poses, but Jojo told me I did a really good job and that he’d like to work with me again.”

“That’s great,” I said.

“I have to call Wendy and tell her,” Hannah said happily.

I narrowed my eyes. “Speaking of which, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“About what?”

“I can’t believe you called Wendy Erickson to ask her for advice!”

“Who else would I ask? She’s the only working model I know,” Hannah said. “Or, knew. I met some really cool girls today. One of them told me a trick she had for losing five pounds in a hurry—”

“You know why! She’s Dex’s ex- girlfriend!” I said, cutting her off.

“So?”

“So she wants to get back together with him!”

“Why do you think that?”

“I can just tell. She oozes all over him every time they’re together,” I said.

Hannah sighed. “Miranda, Dex is with you. You have to trust him.”

“I do trust him!
She’s
the one I don’t trust,” I said.

“Wendy’s actually really nice. Plus, she has a boyfriend at school. They’re really serious,” Hannah said.

This stunned me into momentary silence.

“Really? How do you know that?” I finally asked.

“Duh.” Hannah rolled her eyes in a most annoying way. “She
told
me.”

“What did she say exactly?”

“Hmmmm.” Hannah reached behind her to grasp her hair into a stubby ponytail while she considered my question. “Her boyfriend’s starting college in the fall. She said that he’s going to Oberlin, but they’re going to try to figure out how to do the whole long-distance relationship thing. She also said he’s gorgeous and brilliant, and that they’re madly in love.”

“She said that? That she was in love with this other guy?”

Hannah nodded. “Mm-hmm. I’m telling you, you have nothing to worry about. She’s not after Dex, and besides, Dex likes you. He’s way more into you than he ever was with Wendy.”

“You really think so?”

“Definitely. Tiff and Britt were just telling me how smitten he seemed at that cookout you all had at the beach. Don’t you just love that word?
Smitten
.”

“They said that? Really?” I asked. A warm, rosy glow spread through me.

“Yep,” Hannah said.

“Oh. Well, okay, then. I guess you can call her,” I said, with only a trace of reluctance.

Hannah laughed. “You’re giving me permission?” she teased.

I smiled. “No, but I will give you my blessing. Let’s order dinner.”

But before I could find the take-out menu for Mario’s, the doorbell rang.

“Can you get that?” Hannah asked. “It’s probably Emmett. He said he might stop by after work.”

She headed off to the bathroom—probably to touch up her lip gloss—and I went to answer the door. But it wasn’t Emmett.

“Hi,” Charlie croaked. Framed in the doorway, she looked absolutely wretched. Her face was pale and blotchy, and tears streamed down her cheeks. “Can I come in?”

I called back to Hannah, letting her know it wasn’t Emmett, and then led Charlie to my bedroom. Willow followed us, looking worried and thrusting her long nose into Charlie’s hand in an offer of canine comfort.

As soon as we were in my room with the door shut behind us, I turned to Charlie.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” I asked anxiously. Although Charlie had a manic-depressive disorder, she rarely ever cried, even during her depressive periods. Normally, she just got really quiet and tired and spent a lot of time in bed. Seeing her like this, in floods of tears, was alarming.

Charlie sat heavily on the edge of my bed and covered her face with her hands. I sat down next to her, feeling almost numb with worry.

“Are you hurt? Do you need me to call your parents?” I asked.

Charlie looked up, wiping at her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “What? No. I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, obviously, but I’m not hurt.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Charlie looked down, staring at her feet. “I feel stupid telling you.”

“You can tell me anything,” I protested.

“I don’t know if I can tell you this.”

“Okay,” I said.

We sat there quietly, side by side. I wasn’t sure how I could help if Charlie didn’t want to tell me what was wrong. But I thought that if she really hadn’t wanted to talk to me about it, she wouldn’t have shown up on my doorstep in tears. The best thing to do was just wait her out.

Finally, Charlie took in a deep breath, slowing the ragged gulps of air she had been taking. “Here’s the thing . . . I think I might . . .” She stopped and shrugged. “It feels weird to say out loud.”

“Do you want to write it down?” I asked, thinking back on my advice to Amelia that morning.

Charlie gave me a withering stare, looking much more like her old self. “Don’t patronize me,” she said in an acid tone.

“There’s the Charlie I know and love,” I said. I nudged her. “Just tell me.”

“I think . . . the thing is . . . I think I have feelings for Finn,” Charlie said. She started off slowly at first, but then the words suddenly came out in such a rush, it took me a few beats to process what she’d said.

Charlie
had feelings for
Finn
? It wasn’t like I hadn’t suspected it. But I’d never, not in a million years,
ever
thought Charlie would admit to it.

“Say something!” Charlie cried.

“I think . . . wow. I mean . . . that’s just . . .
wow
,” I said.

Charlie looked at me. “Wow?” she repeated. “All you can say is wow?”

“Give me a minute. I have to adjust to the news that one of my two best friends is in love with the other one,” I said.

“Love? I didn’t say
love
,” Charlie said quickly. “I said,
have feelings
.
Have feelings
is not the same thing as
love
. It’s an entirely different state of being.” But despite her words, Charlie simultaneously blushed the color of a ripe tomato and shifted uneasily in her seat.

I couldn’t help grinning. “You’ve got it bad, huh?” I said. “Are you going to help me or what?” Charlie growled.

There was a knock on my door. “Come in,” I called out.

Hannah opened the door. “Hey, are you ready to call in our dinner order?” she asked, poking her head in. She saw Charlie and smiled a little shyly. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Charlie said, still sniffling a bit.

“Hannah, this is my friend Charlie.”

“I know, we’ve met before,” Hannah said. She looked more closely at Charlie, taking in her tear- streaked face. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?”

Charlie nodded. “Guy problems,” she said.

“What happened?” Hannah asked.

“There’s just this guy . . . he’s a good friend of mine. Of ours,” Charlie said, flicking a glance at me.

Hannah, taking this explanation as an invitation to join the conversation, walked in and curled up on the opposite end of the bed, cuddling my pillow in her arms. “Go on,” she said, nodding. “Tell me everything. I’m really good at solving relationship problems. Just ask Miranda.”

I nodded. “She does have a knack for it,” I said.

“There’s nothing much to tell. I have feelings for this guy,” Charlie said awkwardly. She looked sharply at me to quell any comments I might make. “I’m not
in love
with him, I just . . . well, I guess I realized I like him more than I previously thought I did.”

“And he doesn’t feel the same way about you?” Hannah sympathized.

“No. He doesn’t,” Charlie said sadly.

“I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” I chipped in. “I think Finn might have feelings for you, too.”

“You do?” Charlie asked.

I nodded. “When you were going out with Mitch, it drove Finn crazy. That’s why he kept picking fights with you. I think he was jealous.”

“Really?” Hannah said, drawing the word out. “This sounds promising.”

But Charlie shook her head. “That was then. Now Finn’s going out with someone else. He’s infatuated with her.”

“Who? Do I know her?”

“You might. She goes to Orange Cove High. Her name’s Phoebe McLeod,” Charlie said.

“Phoebe McLeod? Yeah, I know her,” Hannah said. “She’s pretty nice. A little ditzy, maybe.”

“She does seem ditzy,” I said loyally.

“She’s not very smart,” Hannah continued. “In fact, I think I heard she’s in summer school, taking some classes she failed.”

“It’s hard to imagine Finn with someone who isn’t smart,” I said.

“No, it’s not,” Charlie said with a faint smile.

“No, it’s not,” I agreed, smiling, too.

Finn was brilliant, but he was a total goofball. And, like many of the guys we went to school with, he was self-conscious about being thought of as a geek. If a pretty girl showed interest in him
and
laughed at his jokes, he wouldn’t care if she had the IQ of a cantaloupe.

“What you need is a plan,” Hannah said.

“A plan? What do you mean?” Charlie asked, perking up a bit.

“First of all, you need to get his attention,” Hannah said. She looked Charlie over critically. “You’re cute, but the purple hair needs to go.”

“Hannah!” I said.

“It’s okay. I want her to be honest,” Charlie said to me. Looking at Hannah, she said, “What would you suggest?”

“You should get it dyed a normal shade,” Hannah advised her. “You’d look good as a blonde. But not too light—that would just wash you out. A dark blond with chunky highlights.”

“This is ridiculous,” I said. Turning to Charlie, I said, “You shouldn’t try to be someone you’re not.”

I wanted to remind her of what had happened when she was dating Mitch. She’d dyed her hair red to please him and, in the process, had morphed into a different person altogether. Charlie seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because she reluctantly shook her head.

“Miranda’s right. I can’t change who I am,” she said.

“Well, in that case, we’re going to have to be a little devious,” Hannah said, drumming her fingers against the pillow.

Charlie and I looked at each other.

“Devious is good,” Charlie said.

“Devious may be the best way to get Finn’s attention,” I agreed.

“What would I have to do?” Charlie asked.

“You said Finn was jealous when you were dating someone else, right? Then you just need to make him jealous again,” Hannah suggested. “Find a cute guy and flirt with him like crazy. Then when Finn sees you with the other guy, it’ll snap him out of his infatuation with Phoebe.”