Dating on the Dork Side

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

RHINO’S GARAGE DOOR was shut tight. I probably should have taken that as a warning. Instead, I went in through the mud room. It always felt rude and a little weird to walk through the house without saying anything, so I poked my head into the kitchen. “Hey, Mrs. R,” I called.

She turned toward me and smiled. “Oh, Camy, there you are! We haven’t seen you in a while.”

“School,” I said. “Busy.”

“I know. Ben told us about the homecoming court. How exciting for you! Wait. Hang on. Here,” she said, handing me a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies. “Can you take that out to Ben and his ...” She paused and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “His friend.”

I nodded.

“Oh, and be sure to tell your dad to come over this weekend. Darren will be home, and we’re having a cookout. Besides, we don’t see enough of him since he and your mom—” She re-tucked the strand of hair. “We just don’t see enough of him.”

I stood there for a second, not sure what to say. Dad wasn’t much on socializing. And the Rineholds were … okay. I guess they meant well.

The oven timer went off and I was saved by the bell. Or the beep. Whatever.

The smell of warm chocolate mixed with a hint of cement as I stepped down the few stairs to the garage. Maybe I should’ve thought more about who Rhino’s “friend” might be. His list of them wasn’t huge, but it did exist. He had a way of drawing people to him. They were geeks, mostly, but he attracted his share of nerds and hopeless dorks too. Padawan learners to his Jedi Master.

I shoved open the door to the garage with my hip and stopped. Because sitting on Rhino’s couch was no dork. Not unless the new nerd uniform included short shorts with the word CHEER! printed across the butt. I was willing to bet that most geeks were never student council president, head cheerleader, or co-captain of the debate team either. (All right, so maybe that last one.) I pulled the door closed quietly behind me.

Rhino flipped his hair in my direction and his eyes crinkled. “Let me rewind and I’ll show you,” he was saying.

“I see enough of Todd the Toad already.” Elle glanced over her shoulder at me. “He’s my cousin, you know.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“And he’s going to beat you tomorrow if you don’t pay attention,” Rhino added.

It was like they noticed me without actually noticing me. I don’t know why that surprised me. It wasn’t like either of them ever missed a thing. Together they could probably take over the world. Or at least beat Prairie Stone High at debate, which looked to be their current objective.

Rhino pressed a button on the remote. On the screen, a boy with dark hair, smart-looking glasses and a Star Wars tie moved backwards, as if retracting the point he’d just made. Debate in reverse, a politician’s dream.

“Right … there,” Rhino said. “When he’s not sure what he’s talking about, he touches his index cards, see? When he’s confident, it’s like the cards don’t exist.”

Elle let out a breath. “You are a freaking genius.”

Rhino patted her knee, then raised his hands in mock modesty. “That goes without saying.” Which meant, of course, that Rhino had to say it. “Want to take a break?”

He stood and turned toward me. He blinked once or twice, and it was like his eyes were adjusting from the dazzling colors of the TV screen and Elle to plain old, real life, black and white me. I raised the plate of cookies, but he focused on my face. “You okay?”

“Fine.” I wondered if he could hear the lie in my voice.

“You look dehydrated or something.”

I sighed. Or something. “Maybe I am.”

“Grab a Coke from the fridge.” Rhino scooted past me and went to check one of the computers on the far wall of the garage.

I think it was what was in the fridge that did me in. I opened the door. For a second, I shut my eyes and let the cool air hit my face. When I opened them, row after row of Diet Coke greeted me. At first I thought it was only the ones in front. I pushed a few cans aside. Then a few more until, at last, I’d checked every can of soda in the mini-fridge.

All Diet Coke. Not a single can of Cherry. Damn.

I shut the door. Not a slam; I wasn’t in that kind of mood. I wasn’t upset about Elle’s takeover of Rhino’s garage. I wasn’t jealous. But I felt the last strands holding my day together fray and I sighed.

“I thought you were okay with this,” Elle said.

“Okay with what?” I worked on feigning innocence, but Elle crossed her arms over her chest and tapped a foot.

“It’s ... different, okay?” I glanced to where Rhino was fiddling with one of his computers.

“Got it!” he called across the room. “Want to see what he did at last week’s Edina Invitational?”

“The Invitational?” Elle said. “How did you …?”

“I have some excellent AV techie connections. A friend of a friend of a friend.” He waved a hand in the air. “That kind of thing.”

“You’re amazing,” she said.

He spread his hands, his grin equally wide. “Again, goes without saying.”

Ha, I thought.

Out loud I said, “Are you supposed to be doing this?”

They both gave me the exact same look, a Why are you pestering us with mundane and inconsequential details? sort of stare. They both, I suddenly realized, had that same streak of ruthless ambition, a “win at all costs” mindset. And combining these two? They were either perfect for each other, or whatever I’d started on Monday would surely rock the school before the year was out.

Rhino had planted himself on the couch next to Elle again and was firing up the new recording.

“I think I’ll go home,” I said.

“Stay, Ladybug.” Rhino waved at the screen. “You can help psychoanalyze poor Todd the Toad. He won’t know what hit him tomorrow.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “You guys are doing fine on your own.”

That was it, of course. They were fine. Without me. It wasn’t that I wanted Rhino to pat my knee. Not at all. But overnight, he’d let Elle into his bubble of personal space. The one he had, until now, reserved completely for me. When he pointed at the screen, he leaned toward her. And if a strand of her hair graced his shoulder? He ran it through his fingers as if gauging its silkiness.

I left without saying goodbye.

I felt a twinge at the edge of the drive, the tiniest bit of regret fueling my doubt. But I reminded myself again: I didn’t like Rhino that way. We’d tried it, of course. On more than one rainy afternoon back in ninth grade, when there wasn’t anything better to do, we’d danced around the edges of making out. But even though Rhino might be as naturally talented at kissing as he was at math or dancing … something was missing.

Standing in his driveway now, I knew that this feeling was loneliness, not doubt, not true regret. I was rudderless without Rhino’s ever-present company.

I left his driveway in increments, one step backward at a time. Maybe, I thought at the last second, the garage door would rumble open and he’d insist I come back inside. But it didn’t, and he didn’t. I turned toward home, knowing I’d feel just as lonely there.

I caught Dad on the phone that night, talking quietly with my mom. “I’m telling you, Olivia, it’s different,” he said. “She’s distant and kind of jumpy.” After a pause he said, “No, I don’t think it’s the college thing. Maybe it’s the pressure of the homecoming competition?” Followed by a quick, “What? She didn’t tell you?”

Great. Until that second, homecoming had felt like the least of my problems. I had a dress and a ride in a convertible. I was leaving the rest of it up to the universe, fate, karma, or whatever. Now I’d have to explain the whole thing to my mom. And to keep Dad from worrying I’d have to make sure the phrase “freaky hermit girl” would not leave his mouth all weekend long.

I did my homework downstairs at the kitchen table. I raked up a big pile of leaves in the yard. When it came to the wiki, I vowed not to get sucked in—too much. A few times a day, I looked through the new comments. I added a few notes to my tracking spreadsheet before I studied the ones Gavin had given me in the boys’ bathroom. I had a feeling I was missing something and it bothered me.

On Sunday afternoon I decided to take one last peek at the wiki before the Vikings game. I was upstairs, fingers on my laptop, when the doorbell rang.

“Camy, someone’s here to see you,” Dad called.

I was halfway down the stairs when I stopped to think: Who? Dad would’ve said if it was Rhino. I slowed my steps. Elle, maybe? But then I had another thought, and my heart sped up. Maybe it was Gavin. I gripped the handrail and forced myself down the last few stairs.

I found them in the kitchen. Dad … and Sophie.

“Oh, hey,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too disappointed. I wasn’t, not really.

Sophie looked at her shoes. Not those serious boots today, but a beat-up pair of knockoff Chucks. Then she glanced up at me. “You wouldn’t know anything about Grapes of Wrath, would you?” she said.

“I know everything about it.”

Dad laughed and grabbed a beer from the fridge. “Well, ladies, if you get bored with great literature, there’s always the Vikings at three.”

“Football,” I said to Sophie. “It’s kind of a tradition around here.” She looked confused, her gaze going from me to where Dad had vanished into our living room.

“I thought...” she began. “I mean, I didn’t know you lived with your dad.”

“My mom lives in Iowa. She teaches Women’s Studies there.”

“Oh.”

Yeah. That was most people’s reaction.

“So,” I said, trying to break through Sophie’s odd politeness. “Grapes of Wrath?”

“Actually, I was wondering.” She picked at the label on the bottle of water Dad had handed her. “Do you really have a guy for me?”

“Yep.”

“And does he really like me, or does he just think he can get laid?”

I fought off a blush and thought about Kevin Orrs, former stoner, former slacker supreme, mysteriously turned AV tech geek. I thought about how, whenever he took video footage of an assembly or pep rally, he always let the camera stop on Sophie a few moments longer than anyone else. It wasn’t something obvious. If you weren’t looking for it, you’d probably miss it.

“I’m pretty sure he likes you just to like you,” I whispered, peeking into the living room. Dad seemed engrossed in football. Still, there was no sense in taking any chances. “Let’s go upstairs,” I said.

Sophie stopped at the door to my bedroom. “Whoa,” she said. “Sweet. Is this all yours?”

I nodded.

“I gotta share with my sisters. It sucks.” She shook her head. Then she pierced me with a look. “So this not-wanting-to-get-laid boy. Who is he?”

“Kevin Orrs?” I said it like that too. Like it was a question, not a fact. Like Kevin could become someone else, depending on Sophie’s reaction.

“Are you kidding me? Kevin Orrs does not like me.”

“Ever watch the videos of assemblies?”

“Nobody watches those.” She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Don’t tell me. You watch them?”

“Sometimes.”

“You are the weirdest girl I know.”

If that was enough to qualify me as weird, what would Sophie think if she learned the whole truth? That I’d strung together a series of clips that featured Gavin, and even synced them to music?

Weird or not, something in the way she’d said it made things okay between us. She pushed the hair away from her face, and I caught a flash of blue and silver circling her wrist, the bracelet I’d given her.

I sat at my desk, opened my laptop and brought up the school website. I scrolled through the archives for Video Fridays until I found the one marked “Homecoming Court.” I’d already watched it. Dad had wanted to see the candidate announcement, which he’d then played about a thousand times.

Unlike Dad, Sophie watched the video in mock horror. “When aliens take over the world, they’ll probably use this video to prove that humans have no higher brain function,” she said.

I snorted. She was so funny, and so smart. And she so didn’t realize it.

I muted the volume. “It’s easier to see with the sound off.”

“What? The ‘no brain’ part?”

I snorted again.

Even before Aiden pulled the first slip of paper from the envelope, Kevin’s camera had zoomed in on Sophie. He’d made sure all the important stuff was captured, sure, but Sophie was obviously the star of the show. At least the way he saw things.

When the video ended, Sophie exhaled, then sat on my bed. “I don’t know if I should think it’s cool or be creeped out.”

“Cool. Definitely,” I said. “For one thing, Kevin is not on the wiki. Plus, he’s...”

I wanted to say something about the way he had transformed himself from slacker into … I didn’t know what to call him. I still saw him skateboarding in town sometimes. And most days, he still dressed like he did his shopping from the Goodwill store’s throw-away pile. But sometime last spring he’d started sitting with the techies at lunch, instead of the dregs. And when his name was called over the intercom, it was more likely that he was on the honor roll than the detention list these days.

I thought I’d caught a glimpse of something similar when Sophie had first slipped on her dress at Tillie’s last week. When she’d looked in that three-way mirror, it was like she saw a whole different girl in there.

But I couldn’t tell her any of that. “He’s cute,” I said instead.

“Whatever.” Sophie shrugged. “Sure. Set me up with my own geek love connection.”

I thought she might leave then, but she scooted back on my bed and crossed her legs at the ankles. I smelled cooking oil downstairs and a faint pop reached my ears. Dad was getting ready for the Vikings game.

“Speaking of love connections,” she said. “What’s up with you and Gavin in the boys’ bathroom?”

My stomach iced over. The feeling spread until most of my body was freezing. At the same time, my cheeks started to burn. I pressed my fingers against them to cool my face and warm my hands.

“It’s all over school. The dregs know, anyway.” Sophie pointed to herself. “So I figure everybody else does too.”

“What about Elle? Do you think she knows?” I asked.

“Probably.”

“What am I going to do?” Even though I said the words to Sophie, I was really asking for help from the universe, or karma, or that great whatever. I was probably screwed on all accounts.

“You’re gonna tell me, that’s what.”

I shook my head. “It’s ... complicated.”

“When is there ever anything between guys and girls that’s not complicated?” Sophie sighed. “Does this have anything to do with the boycott? If so, forget Elle and her stupid rules. Gavin Madison is a fine reason to break any rule.”

“He is, isn’t he?” I barely whispered the words, but Sophie’s eyes lit up.

She grinned. “Tell me what’s so complicated about Mad Dog, anyway.”

I looked at Sophie Vega sitting on my bed. I watched her fingers twist the blue and silver string bracelet, and I made a decision. I’d tell her. Everything. I’d even show her Gavin’s spreadsheet if she needed proof.

“Holy s**t,” she said, her eyes scanning Gavin’s matrix. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. If I help him and Elle finds out…” I shook my head, not sure what would happen, only that it would be unspeakably awful.

“Or Clarissa,” Sophie said.

“Or Clarissa,” I echoed.

“That girl has got it in for both of us.”

Dad chose that moment to clomp up the stairs. Sophie’s eyes got all big and I stashed the spreadsheets under my calculus homework. He knocked, then opened the door. A wave of warm, buttery air came in with him. The rituals of Sundays: popcorn, football, and rooting for the underdog.

“Here you go, ladies.” Dad set the bowl on my desk with two bottles of water and some extra paper towels. “Vikings play at three,” he added on the way out.

Sophie frowned after he’d left. “Does that mean he wants me to leave?”

I wondered what part of on-the-stove homemade popcorn she didn’t understand and reached for a handful. “You mean the Vikings thing?” I asked. “He’s trying to convert you.”

“Convert me? Into what?”

“A fan. He believes everyone should share in the misery.”

Sophie didn’t move. She didn’t reach for the popcorn, either. I moved to the bed, bringing the popcorn bowl with me and setting it between us.

Sophie shook her head. “Sorry. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around you living with your dad,” she said, staring out the window. “See, ‘dad’ is kind of a ... an ambiguous term at my house. There’s the ‘dad’ we lost our food stamps for, but he was gone after Mom caught him with the babysitter. Then there’s the guy before him, the one who spent our rent money on an Xbox system. Or the ‘dad’ to my little sister, or my other little sister.”

Sophie exhaled. “Then there’s my real dad, but he disappeared before I was even born.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, she turned to stare straight at me. “My mom got kicked out of the house when my grandma found out she was pregnant. She had no place to stay. And he left her. All alone. She was seventeen.”

The minutes stretched between us. I knew I should say something. I’m sorry? Can I do anything to help? I was pretty sure Sophie didn’t want to hear either of those.

“So,” she said finally. “You can stop pretending that I’m some kind of princess. I’m nobody’s Cinderella. There’s no such thing as Prince Charming, either. At least not in my world.”

I was still trying to figure out what to say when Dad called up the stairs again. “Vikings in five!”

I shut my eyes and sank against the wall next to my bed. “We can go somewhere else if it makes you uncomfortable,” I said.

“And waste all this amazing popcorn?” Sophie tossed a piece in the air and caught it in her mouth. “How about this? If you explain football to me, I’ll keep Clarissa off your back this week. I mean, if you”—she nodded at the spot where I’d stashed the spreadsheets—“decide to help Gavin.”

“Would you help him?”

“You mean if Mad Dog looked at me the way he looks at you?” Sophie smiled. “Elle would have to call out the Army to keep me away from him.”

“It’s not like that,” I said.

“Sure it isn’t.”

We made it downstairs in time for the kickoff. Dad and I took turns explaining the rules to Sophie until she had to leave for work. I waited until I was sure the Vikings would break Dad’s heart (again) and used that as an excuse to take a walk.

“I know how this ends,” I told him on my way out.

“Traitor!” he called after me.

I laughed and stepped outside. Maybe I couldn’t change the whole world, or even make the Vikings win. Could I change things for one person? I stood on the porch and took in a deep breath. In that moment, the world smelled like dry leaves and fresh-cut grass, like warm sunshine, like … possibilities. I headed down the stairs and my feet automatically turned toward Rhino’s.

Changing the world would take a little help.