Summer of the Geek (2 page)

Dex continued. “Maybe the part of your brain that solves math problems is so enormous, it saps power away from other areas of your brain. Like the part that controls how you drive a car.”

I wondered if Dex was right. Maybe this math dominance of my brain also explained why I have absolutely no fashion sense and can’t apply eye shadow without poking myself in the eye. Still, it wasn’t exactly flattering. I wanted my boyfriend to think of me as beautiful and charming, not as some sort of weirdo with a malfunctioning brain. Besides, it wasn’t like I wanted to be able to solve equations in my head. Math bored me. I much preferred writing short stories to solving theorems.

“You’re starting your new job tomorrow, right?” Dex asked.

I nodded. My summer job as an au pair to a ten-year-old girl named Amelia Fisher had been a last-minute surprise. Amelia was a student at Geek Elementary, and reportedly, a virtuoso at the piano. Our school headmaster, Philip C. Hughes, had recommended me to Amelia’s parents, or so Mrs. Fisher had told me when she called to offer me the job.

“I hope Amelia likes me,” I said. “I don’t have a lot of experience with kids. I babysat once, and it was a nightmare.”

“Why? What happened?” Dex asked.

“The kids wanted to play pirates.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Dex asked.

“ ‘Pirates’ meant they tied me to a tree. The little sociopaths left me there for the rest of the afternoon, while they went inside and watched a horror movie that their mother had specifically forbidden them to see. It was one of those gory ones, where people get hacked up with axes and stuff like that.”

Dex sputtered with laughter. “Did they ever let you go?”

“No! Their mother found me there when she got home. And she actually gave me a lecture about responsibility and said that if the kids had nightmares from the movie, it would be all my fault! Can you believe that?” I shook my head. “That was the beginning and end of my babysitting career.”

“So why exactly have you signed up to spend your entire summer babysitting?” Dex asked.

“Well, it’s not babysitting exactly. I think an au pair is more like being a companion.”

I felt weird telling him what Mrs. Fisher had actually said when she called to offer me the job: “Amelia has trouble relating to kids her age. I think it would be good for her to spend time with someone who’s grown-up exceptionally gifted, and knows what it’s like.” I didn’t like talking about being gifted. It sounded too braggy.

“I’m sure you’ll be great,” Dex said.

“Are you excited about your first day of work?” I asked.

Dex had gotten his old job back as a lifeguard at the local community pool. I was trying to be supportive and not fixate on the fact that this basically meant he’d be spending his summer surrounded by girls in bikinis.

“I’m just glad that I’ll be near the beach so I can fit in some parasurfing while I can.”

“While you can? What do you mean?” I asked. Dex surfed year-round. It was one of the perks of living in Florida.

Dex opened his mouth, as though he were about to say something. But then he seemed to reconsider. He shrugged and shook his head. “Just that the pool is across the street from the beach, so I’ll have easy access. Maybe I’ll even be able to go surfing on my breaks.”

I felt a twinge of unease. Was there something Dex wasn’t telling me? Or maybe I was just feeling guilty, because there was something—something important, something that could change the course of my entire life—that I hadn’t yet told him.

My mom—who insists that I call her by her first name, Sadie—writes steamy romance novels under the pen name Della De La Courte. She’d temporarily relocated to London the previous year while she researched and wrote her next book, leaving me behind in Orange Cove to live with my dad and evil stepmother. The book was taking longer to complete than Sadie had originally thought, so when she came home for a visit three weeks earlier, she’d announced that she was going to stay in London for another year. Then she dropped a second bombshell: She asked me if I’d like to come live with her.

I’d gone to visit Sadie in London over Christmas break, and had loved it there. Orange Cove was a small town, where nothing much ever happened. Even worse, everyone in my hometown knew me as Miranda Bloom, the Human Calculator. Geek Girl Extraordinaire.

In London, I was anonymous. I could be anyone or anything. And the idea of actually living in such a huge international city was thrilling. Moving to London would also mean I wouldn’t have to continue living with my evil stepmother, Peyton, for another school year.

But moving away would also mean leaving a lot of things behind. There was Dex, who, after months of confusion and misunderstandings, was officially my boyfriend. Just the idea of moving away, when we were finally a couple, made my stomach ache. And then there were my best friends, Finn and Charlie, and my new position as a writer for the Geek High magazine,
The Ampersand
.

I was so confused and conflicted about what I should do that I hadn’t told anyone about Sadie’s proposal that I move to London with her. I hadn’t meant to keep it a secret—I just wanted a chance to think it through first. But the longer I went without telling anyone, the harder it seemed to be to bring it up.

“What are you doing after work tomorrow? Do you want to meet up?” Dex asked.

“I can’t tomorrow. Charlie and I have plans,” I said. “How about Wednesday?”

“Sounds good,” Dex said. He leaned forward and rested his forehead against mine, so that his pale eyes loomed before mine. I could see the lighter golden flecks in his irises, and the scattering of freckles over his cheekbones. My breath caught in my chest, and all thoughts of moving to London and whatever it was Dex wasn’t telling me flew out of my mind.

“See you later,” he said, and then kissed me lightly.

“See you later,” I said.

T
he lingering zing from Dex’s kiss continued to flutter in my stomach well after I’d let myself into the house and Dex had driven off. My brindle greyhound, Willow, greeted me at the front door, her long, lean body wriggling with happiness.

“Hi, girl,” I said, patting her sleek head.

Willow followed me into the kitchen and looked on hopefully while I rifled through the fridge for a snack. I found some leftover pizza from the night before—basil and tomato, my favorite—and took the whole box out onto the back deck to eat. The view from the deck overlooked the ocean, so while I ate my pizza, I watched the tide roll in on whitecapped waves. Willow settled herself down at my feet and dozed in the sun.

But the peace and quiet was short- lived. I could suddenly hear voices raised in argument coming from inside the house. Even the roar of the ocean didn’t stop me from hearing every word that was said. Or, more accurately, yelled.

“What were you
thinking
? You
knew
we had plans that night!”

“
Obviously
, I didn’t, or I wouldn’t have arranged the
business
trip for that weekend.”

The cold female voice belonged to my stepmother, Peyton, whom I had not so affectionately nicknamed the Demon. The low-pitched growl belonged to my dad. It sounded like they were in the kitchen. I hunched down in my chair, hoping they wouldn’t notice me. I’d learned from experience that when my dad and Peyton were fighting, it was best to stay out of their way.

“Is it really so hard to check with me
before
you make plans to be out of town?” Peyton asked.

“I didn’t have a choice in the matter. It was the only weekend the client could meet with me,” Dad replied. He was an architect, and frequently traveled to meet with clients or visit a building site. In fact, he and Peyton had met through his work, when she hired him to design the beach house. The Demon was the heiress to a mouthwash fortune.

“So your clients are more important to you than I am?” Peyton asked, her voice shrill with anger.

“Some of us have to work for a living,” Dad replied in a cold, cutting tone.

The sliding glass door opened behind me, and I turned to see my stepsister, Hannah, walk out onto the deck. The voices of our fighting parents became momentarily louder—“Thoughtless!” “Selfish!”—before Hannah firmly slid the door shut behind her. She was holding her white Persian cat, Madonna. The cat took one look at Willow and hissed evilly.

“Hey,” Hannah said.

“Hi,” I said.

“Is it just me or are they getting worse?” Hannah asked.

“It’s not just you,” I said. Richard and Peyton had been fighting a lot lately. And I knew all too well what they were fighting about:
me
. Peyton hadn’t wanted me to move into the beach house with them the previous year. My continued presence had been a source of conflict.

“I’m sick of it. And it’s stressing Madonna out. She keeps getting hair balls,” Hannah said, collapsing into the chair next to mine. Madonna didn’t look particularly stressed out. Her flat, malevolent eyes were still fixed on Willow. Willow—who was terrified of the cat, despite being larger, equipped with fangs and bred for hunting—shrank back and skulked behind my chair.

“Coward,” I said, patting Willow reassuringly. “Are you all packed and ready to go?”

Hannah’s investment banker father and stepmother lived in Manhattan. She flew up to see them several times a year, and was leaving the next day for a weeklong visit.

“No, but I can finish tonight,” Hannah said.

“I thought you were going out with Emmett,” I said.

Emmett Dutch was Hannah’s boyfriend, and a year ahead of me at Geek High. I’d had a crush on him for years, and was heartbroken when he and Hannah first started dating the previous year. Thankfully, I was over that now. I had Dex, and besides, Emmett and Hannah made a really cute couple.

“He canceled,” Hannah said moodily. She crossed her arms and stared out at the ocean. “He has to work.”

“Where’s he working this summer?”

“At the Sno-Freeze,” she said.

“That’s where he worked last summer, too,” I remarked, then flushed when Hannah looked at me, surprised. I’d never told her about my former feelings for Emmett, so she had no reason to know that I’d spent two years of my life gathering every nugget of information about him that I could find. “Geek High is small. Everyone knows everything about everyone,” I said quickly.

Hannah nodded, accepting this explanation. “He was promoted to assistant manager. Emmett was really excited about it because he got a raise, but basically it means that when anyone calls in sick, he gets stuck working their shift. It’s so incredibly lame. He’s worked every night this week, and now I’m not going to get to see him before I leave on my trip.”

“That’s too bad,” I commiserated. I pushed the pizza box in Hannah’s direction. “Want some pizza?”

Hannah’s nose wrinkled. “Do you know how many fat grams are in one slice of pizza?”

“No idea,” I said.

“A lot,” Hannah said ominously. “I have to lose ten pounds.”

“Are you insane? You don’t need to lose weight.”

“I do if I’m going to be a model! Do you know how tiny those girls are?” Hannah said.

“I didn’t know you wanted to model,” I said. I thought my stepsister was certainly pretty enough to model. In fact, she was annoyingly pretty. While I was stuck with a tall and gangly body, frizzy hair and a too-big nose, Hannah looked like a princess straight from a Disney fairy tale. She had long, platinum blond hair, large blue eyes, a tiny button of a nose, and perfect rosebud lips. It was no wonder that Emmett Dutch, god of Geek High, had taken one look at Hannah and fallen madly in love with her. “I thought models were really tall, though.”

“Kate Moss isn’t,” Hannah said defensively. “She’s five-foot-six, my height exactly. Well, minus an inch or so.”

“Oh. Well. Good for you,” I said, trying to be supportive.

Hannah nodded. “Can you keep a secret?” she asked.

“That depends,” I said. “How juicy is it?”

Hannah leaned forward, her blue eyes now bright with excitement. “Jackie has arranged for a photographer she knows to do a photo shoot with me. He’s going to put together a portfolio for me so I can start auditioning for modeling jobs.”

I’d never met Hannah’s stepmother, but even so, I’d always been a bit jealous of her relationship with Hannah. Jackie seemed to truly adore Hannah, and treated her like the daughter she’d never had. It was a stark contrast to how the Demon barely tolerated my presence in the beach house.

“That’s nice of her. Why is it a secret?” I asked.

“My mom.” Hannah made a face. “She’s totally against the idea of my modeling. Did you know that she changed the terms of my trust fund so that I only get the money if I go to college first? So lame. Although I guess if I’m a really famous model, I won’t need a trust fund.”

Surprisingly enough, I actually agreed with the Demon on this. What were the chances that Hannah would make it in modeling? I certainly wasn’t an expert in the field, but I had to imagine there were thousands of girls competing for such a high-paying, glamorous job. It made a lot more sense for Hannah to go on to college. Even if she did pursue modeling, she’d have her education to fall back on if it didn’t work out.

“What time is your flight out tomorrow?” I asked.

“Ten,” Hannah said. She rolled her eyes. “It means I’m going to have to get up at, like, dawn in order to get to the airport in time.”

“It’ll be good practice for when you’re a model and having to get up early for photo shoots,” I said.

I was just teasing, but Hannah nodded seriously. “That’s true. Although you know what Linda Evangelista said.”

“Linda who?” I asked.

“You don’t know who Linda Evangelista is?” Hannah asked, her mouth dropping open.

This happened a lot with Hannah. She and her friends studied fashion magazines the way archaeologists examine ancient ruins. I rarely knew what they were talking about when they started discussing designers and models.