Summer of the Geek (4 page)

Amelia stared at me. “I don’t have time for this. And I’m not going to pretend like we’re friends or something.”

This was getting ridiculous. I was not about to be put in my place by a ten-year-old girl.

“So that’s a no to the park, huh?” I said. I crossed my arms, too, and did my best to return the icy glare. “We could play a board game. Do you have Monopoly?”

“No.”

“Scrabble?”

“No.”

“Candy Land?”

Amelia rolled her eyes. “I’m not a baby.”

I had to stifle the urge to retort, “Could have fooled me.” Taunting Amelia probably wasn’t the best way to win her over.

“What would you like to do, then?” I asked, my patience eroding.

“Practice,” Amelia said. And with that, she turned and marched back toward the living room. A moment later, I heard the music start again. This time, she’d chosen to play a dark and foreboding piece that thundered darkly. It was a musical temper tantrum.

I wondered if I should go after her. But then what? I couldn’t force her to hang out with me. I unzipped my backpack, pulled out the spiral notebook I wrote my short stories in, and sat back down at the kitchen table. If I was going to be stuck here for hours, listening to Amelia practice, I might as well get some writing done.

“
S
he hates me,” I said.

“I’m sure she doesn’t hate you,” Charlie said. “She was probably just mad at her mom and taking it out on you.”

I considered this. “No. I’m pretty sure she hated me,” I said.

After work, I’d met my best friend, Charlie Teague, at the bowling alley, where she’d gotten a summer job. Her shift was over, too, so we sat at one of the high tables, drinking sodas and watching the women’s senior bowling league—the Pinkies, complete with matching neon pink bowling shirts—compete against a visiting team.

The bowling alley was dark and smelled like feet, but even so, I envied Charlie’s job. I’d spent six long hours at the Fishers’ house, during which time Amelia hadn’t spoken another word to me. Instead, she spent the entire day playing the piano, breaking only to eat the tuna sandwiches I made for lunch. While she ate, she kept her eyes fixed on her plate and ignored all of my attempts to draw her out. The only bright spot of the day was that I’d finished my short story, and even thought up a title for it—
How to Get Noticed
. But now I was already dreading having to go back to the Fishers’ tomorrow. Amelia’s unrelenting hostility was getting to me.

“She refused to speak to me. She just practiced the piano the entire time I was there,” I said.

“She sounds intense,” Charlie remarked. Charlie was short and wiry, and had recently dyed her cropped hair a deep eggplant purple. She was wearing a short-sleeved blue-and-white-striped shirt emblazoned with BOWL-A-RAMA across the front. Charlie had managed to make the uniform look chic by wearing it over a white-ribbed tank top and tying the bowling shirt at the waist.

“She is,” I agreed. “In fact, from what I saw today, I’d say she’s obsessed.”

“Hmm,” Charlie said. “I suppose obsession isn’t always a bad thing. I’ve done some of my best work when I’ve been in the middle of an intense all-nighter.”

Charlie was an amazing artist. Lately, she’d been painting huge canvases that took up the whole wall of her garage (which her parents had converted into a studio for her). But Charlie was also manic-depressive, which meant that she went through phases where she didn’t sleep much and tended to stay up all night, painting frenziedly, then go to bed for days at a time. Sure, she got amazing results, but it had never seemed very healthy to me.

“You’re not ten,” I said. “She’s pretty young to be so single-minded.”

“That’s true,” Charlie said, taking a sip of her soda.

“Anyway, I think I might quit. Is the bowling alley still hiring?” I said.

“Quit?” Charlie stared at me. “You can’t quit. You have to help this girl. Teach her how to live a more balanced life. If she doesn’t have something in it other than her music, she’ll burn out before she’s fifteen.”

“How am I supposed to teach her anything? Didn’t you hear the part about how she won’t speak to me?” I asked.

“You’ll just have to try harder. Find a way to break through to her,” Charlie said.

“How exactly am I supposed to save her when Amelia won’t even acknowledge my presence?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie admitted. “We’ll have to think of something. Do you know anything about classical music?”

“No,” I said. “Nothing.”

“That’s too bad. Maybe you could learn enough to be able to talk about it with her. That might get her to open up.”

“I don’t think I could possibly learn enough about the piano by tomorrow to convince her that I’m interested in it. I can’t even play ‘Chopsticks,’ ” I said gloomily.

“You have to think of something. This is a matter of life and death.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Okay, it’s not. But it is a matter of happiness and personal fulfillment versus years of loneliness and isolation,” Charlie said.

“Hello, my little chickadees,” Finn said, appearing at our table and sitting at one of the tall stools. “How’s my posse doing on this fine afternoon?”

Finn Birnbaum was very tall and very pale, and had shaggy brown hair, mischievous blue eyes, and a scar over his mouth, now faded to a pale silver, that was left over from the surgery he had as a baby to correct a cleft lip.

“Miranda and I have been working all day,” Charlie said pointedly. “What about you? Have you done anything remotely productive?”

Finn was, as usual, unperturbed by Charlie’s needling. He smiled sweetly. “I was very productive. I slept until noon, thus making sure my growing body was properly rested. Then I ate three bowls of Lucky Charms and watched cartoons to stimulate my mind. Then I hacked into the Geek High server, just as a limbering exercise to make sure my mad computer skills don’t atrophy. And then I took a nap, woke up, and headed over here.”

“How is sleeping all day, watching cartoons, and eating cereal productive?” Charlie demanded.

“You’re leaving out the part about my hacking into the school network,” Finn said.

“Do you want to know what I did today?” Charlie continued.

“Not really,” Finn said. “Harsh, yes, but I believe honesty is the best policy.”

“You’re a role model to us all,” I said sarcastically.

Charlie, ignoring both of us, continued. “I got up really early, so I could paint for a few hours before I had to be at work here at eight thirty.”

“Brutal,” Finn said.

“And then I got here, and, as the newbie, I got stuck with shoe duty. Which basically means that I’ve spent the last eight hours taking people’s stinky shoes from them and handing them even stinkier bowling shoes. And then, when they turned the bowling shoes back in, I had to spray them down with Lysol, in a futile attempt to eradicate the funk.”

“Excellent. Now go get me a soda,” Finn told her.

“Get it yourself,” Charlie snarled.

“Don’t you work here? Aren’t you supposed to do whatever I say?” Finn looked puzzled. “What happened to the customer always being right?”

“Were you even listening to me?”

“Not really,” Finn admitted. “I started to, but then you went off on one of your rants, and when you do that, I basically only hear this.” He held up one hand, and opened and shut it, like a bird snapping its beak. “Wah, wah, wah. So, where’s my soda?”

Charlie looked longingly at her soda, and I knew she was picturing herself dumping it over his head. The fact that her manager was still there, manning the cash register, was probably the only thing stopping her.

I decided to step in. “Charlie doesn’t work at the snack bar.”

“Really? I would have thought that would be preferable to touching people’s shoes,” Finn said.

“It would.” Charlie sighed. “But apparently you have to work here for months before you climb up the ladder from shoe handling to the snack bar. One of the fry guys told me he was on shoes for six months before he got promoted. Still,” she added, looking more hopeful, “he was only working part-time. I’m here full-time, at least for the summer. Maybe I’ll move up faster.”

“That’s the ticket,” Finn said. “Keep your eyes on the prize. Reach for the brass ring. Ouch!” He leaned forward to rub the shin Charlie had just kicked. “There’s no need to get violent.”

“The sad thing is that as bad as handling other people’s shoes is, Charlie’s summer job is better than mine,” I said.

“Child care isn’t all you dreamed it would be?” Finn asked. He reached for my soda, but I moved it before he could take a sip. Finn backwashed.

“No,” I said.

“That sucks,” Finn said cheerfully. “I’m glad I don’t have to work a crap job.”

Finn had become a self-made multimillionaire by creating a series of incredibly popular and incredibly violent video games, the most succesful of which was called Grunge Aliens. He’d never have to slog away at a minimum-wage job. For that matter, he’d never have to slog away at
any
job. Finn was set for life. I picked the straw up out of my Coke and flicked soda at him.

“Hey, now!” Finn said. “There’s no need for that!”

“Yes, there is. You’re being incredibly annoying,” Charlie told him. But then she looked thoughtful and turned to me. “You know, he could be just what we need right now.”

“He who?” Finn asked.

“You,” Charlie said. “When you interrupted us, Miranda and I were discussing the girl she’s watching this summer.” Charlie filled Finn in on Amelia’s musical gift and the moral imperative of my helping Amelia achieve a more balanced life. “We need to figure out a way to get Amelia to open up to Miranda. And you’re the most devious person we know.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Finn said. He bridged his hands and tapped his fingertips together. “But I have to admit, I’m intrigued. I’ve never attempted to turn anyone into a minion before.”

“I don’t want to turn her into my minion!” I said. “I just want to get her to talk to me.”

Finn waved this away with a flick of one hand. “The question is, which comes first, establishing trust or establishing your supremacy?”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Why did I think he would be helpful?”

“Just hear me out,” Finn said. “On the one hand, you could win her over first—make her think you’re sympathetic, a friend, an ally. The best way to go about it, really, is to target a common enemy. The most obvious person to fill this role would be her mother—which only makes sense, because it would also serve to undermine her mom’s authority when you’re ready to start asserting your own domination.”

“Finn!” I said.

He ignored me. “Anyway, you make nice, you get her to trust you, you tell her that her mother will never understand her. You get the picture. And then once you get that bond established,
boom
.” He sliced his hand down. “You start establishing your authority. Start off small—tell her things instead of asking, send her on errands, criticize her when she makes mistakes. Or there’s the second option. Start off taking a position of unquestioned authority, and bend her to your will right away, like in the military,” Finn continued.

“There’s something wrong with you,” Charlie told him. “Seriously wrong.”

“I’m supposed to be helping this girl, not dominating and manipulating her,” I added.

“I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised,” Charlie said. “After all, this is the mind who thought up Grunge Aliens, which—if I remember correctly—a reviewer called the most violent video game of all time.”

But Finn wasn’t listening. He was instead eyeing a tall, leggy girl bowling on lane four with a group of friends. She wore her strawberry blond hair tied back in two low pigtails, and had an expression of fierce concentration as she hooked the ball forward, sending it straight down the lane.

“Hello, hello. Who do we have here?” Finn said. “Do either of you know her?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

“What is the point of having chicks as friends if you can’t introduce me to cute girls?” Finn complained.

“I know her. Her name’s Phoebe McLeod,” Charlie said. “I went to elementary school with her, before my parents moved me to Geek Elementary. I think she goes to Orange Cove High now.”

The redheaded girl turned, smiling, and slapped hands with her friends. She had a long, straight nose, a spattering of freckles, and pretty almond-shaped eyes.

“Love at first sight,” Finn said in an odd, strangled voice.

Charlie gave him a sharp look. “What are you talking about?”

“That girl. I think I’m in love with her.”

“You don’t even know her. How can you be in love with someone you don’t even know?” Charlie asked.

“Good point,” Finn said. He hopped off his stool and strode decisively toward lane four.

“Finn, you idiot, what are you doing?” Charlie called after him. If Finn heard her, he didn’t respond. “What is he doing?” she asked me.

“I think he’s introducing himself,” I said, watching as Finn walked up to the group of girls. Charlie and I both leaned forward, straining to hear him over the racket of balls knocking into pins.

“I heard you’re the go-to girl for bowling lessons around here,” Finn said to Phoebe.

“Oh, please,” Charlie scoffed. “That’s the lamest line I’ve ever heard.”

Phoebe’s friends seemed to agree with Charlie. They tittered and exchanged scornful looks. But Phoebe just gazed at Finn, her head tilted to one side, and smiled beatifically up at him. “I doubt it. This is my first time bowling.”

Finn grinned back at her. “Then I guess you must be a natural. I’m Finn, by the way.”

“Hi, Finn. I’m Phoebe.”

“And I’m going to be sick,” Charlie said, jumping off her stool. “I’d rather touch people’s sweaty shoes than watch this.”

I stood up and followed Charlie as she stomped out of the bowling alley and into the dazzling light outside. I’d had reason in the past to suspect that Charlie and Finn might have feelings for each other that went beyond friendship. In fact, Finn had been similarly annoyed when Charlie started going out with her now-ex-boyfriend, Mitch. But when Charlie and Mitch broke up, Finn didn’t make any move to change the status of his relationship with Charlie. Instead, everything between Charlie and Finn went back to normal—Finn did his best to torment Charlie, and, in return, she insulted him at every possible opportunity.