Dating on the Dork Side

Chapter 7-2

Sophie shook her head. “I’m outta here.” She looked at Mercedes, then added, “Gotta work.”

“Oh.” Some of the excitement left Mercedes’ face. “Maybe the rest of us could go?”

“We’ll have to invite Rhino too.” Clarissa wrinkled her nose. “You know, since Camy can’t make any kind of decision on her own.”

Camy can’t ... what?

She stepped in front of me and put a hand on each of my shoulders. Her voice was full of fake concern when she said, “It’s okay, Camy. Elle will be there with us. She’ll order you ar—I mean, she’ll tell you what to do.”

“Seriously, you guys, that’s a great idea!” Mercedes clapped her hands. “We should totally ask Rhino. He can give us a guy’s opinion. It’ll be great!”

My cheeks burned and I felt the sting of tears in my eyes. Without a word, I turned away from them. I was five feet down the hallway when Mercedes called out, “Did I say something wrong?”

Elle was next. “Hey, Camy. Come on. It’ll be fun.”

I turned back to them. Mercedes looked confused. Clarissa looked triumphant. And Elle? Like everything else in her wardrobe, she wore pity well.

“I’ll go some other time,” I said. “Besides, I need to...” What? I searched my brain for an excuse. What did I have to do, besides tell Dad I was now a candidate for homecoming queen? Dad. That could work.

“It’s my night to cook dinner,” I said, and headed down the hallway as fast as my knee would allow.

I tried to load up my book bag when I got to my locker, but the day had left me rattled. I couldn’t remember what assignments were due, so I tossed in everything. Better safe than a sinking GPA.

I closed the locker door gently. I didn’t have enough energy left to slam it. I thought about trudging back to the office to ask Ms. Pendergast if I had really, truly made the homecoming court, or if it was all some big mistake. But that would mean walking past Clarissa again, and I didn’t have the energy for that either. Instead, I rested my forehead against the locker door and let the metal cool my skin.

“So. Did Cinderella and the evil stepsisters go shopping?”

I jerked back. My book bag slipped off my shoulder and crashed to the floor. Sophie was standing at the end of the hallway. Had she been there the whole time?

When she reached me, she lifted my bag off the floor. “Holy shit.” She let the bag fall again. “Are you taking everything home?”

“Pretty much.”

“Hey, you wouldn’t want to ... forget it.”

“What?” I said.

“To … shop.” She said the word like it burned her lips. “For dresses. I work again tomorrow and you’re probably, uh, studying or something.” She rolled her eyes. “But Tillie’s opens at noon on Sundays.”

“How do you even know that?” I asked. I was trying to connect this dress-shop-hour-knowing alien with the Sophie Vega I thought I knew.

“Shut up,” she said. “I just do.”

I shrugged then. I didn’t want to scare her off, but I hadn’t been shopping with another girl in a long time. I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it.

“Come on. Who else can you trust to make sure you don’t end up looking like a second grader?” she added.

Like I said.

She leaned against the lockers and checked me out. “You know, in the right dress, you might be able to flush out the guy who thinks you smell fantastic.”

“But he’ll be on the anti-hit list,” I countered.

Sophie raised an eyebrow. “For the right boy? You could break a few rules.”

I picked up my bag. Would I make an exception for the right guy? I let myself think about it for a second. About dancing to a slow song in the dark gym, about Gavin pulling me closer to him …

And then I imagined what Elle would do to me when she found out.

“Nah,” I said. “Not worth it.” Besides, the Gavin thing? Never gonna happen. I mean, he’d barely spoken to me in three years.

Sophie and I started toward the side door. We fell into step, like we did this every day after school.

“Hey, want a ride home?” she asked.

No nearly left my mouth, but I swallowed it back.

Most days I still walked to school. We only had one car, which Dad needed for work, and I still hadn’t taken the test to convert my learner’s permit to a permanent license. Rhino said I was afraid of taking one of the final steps to independence. I said I’d just been busy and walking was good for your health. Plus, I was conserving the Earth’s resources.

But the sad thing? I wasn’t independent or resourceful at all. Not when it came to homecoming, anyway. I had planned on consulting Rhino about the dress—right up until the second Clarissa had predicted I would. Now I felt lost. I could use someone to help me figure it all out.

So when Sophie asked about the ride a second time I said, “Sure. This homecoming stuff.” I waved the rose, indicating the school. “It’s exhausting.”

She drove the long way around, avoiding Rhino’s street, and I was too embarrassed to thank her for it. Her car grumbled, like it resented the extra passenger, but it was more than clean. It was impeccable. The dashboard gleamed; the seats were worn, but spotless. She let it idle in the driveway while I got out.

“Sunday. Tillie’s. Noon,” she said before I could close the door. “If you’re late, I’ll kick your ass.”

I laughed, but really? I was pretty sure she would kick my butt if I didn’t show up. Still, after she’d pulled out of the drive and disappeared around the corner, I felt … alone. I thought about how I might tell Dad the news. Then I thought about telling my mom, the feminist, and I cringed.

I thought about all the things I wanted to talk to Rhino about too. But with Elle’s not-so-hidden threats and Clarissa’s definitely-not-hidden shaming hanging over me, I wondered if I ever would.

Even though my excuse to get out of shopping had felt like a lie, it really wasn’t. I usually cooked dinner a couple of nights a week. Sometimes all I did was order pizza online, but other nights, I’d throw something together. Breakfast for dinner was Dad’s favorite. When he arrived home, I was cracking eggs for a cheese omelet while slices of Spam (yes, Spam) sizzled in the frying pan.

His laptop case landed with a thud on one of the kitchen chairs. He looked at the crushed eggshells and the empty can of Spam. “Thank you,” he said. He shut his eyes and sighed.

“Bad day?” I pushed the Spam to one side and added the eggs to the pan.

“Something like that,” he said. He crossed the kitchen and planted a kiss on my forehead. “And how was your day? Any tests?”

“Just a quiz in French,” I said.

Dad’s gaze stopped on the rose in a vase on the table. I’d trimmed the end and added an aspirin to revive it. The flower did look perkier. If I leaned in close enough, I could still smell it a little, too, even through the thick odor of processed meat.

“And since you already have enough As, they gave you a flower instead?”

All of a sudden, my mouth felt weird, like there were words I couldn’t say. I was pretty sure those words were homecoming and court and queen and contest. This was stupid, I thought. What was I afraid of?

“And I’m in the homecoming court,” I blurted.

He blinked a couple of times.

“It’s why I have the flower,” I said.

“You’re going to homecoming?” he asked. “With Rhino?”

“No, Dad.” And I swear, he looked relieved. “I was voted into the homecoming court. You know, the five girls who—”

Dad let out a whoop. He picked me up and spun me around. “So, my little girl is going to be princess?”

My face burned so hot I could’ve cooked the eggs on my cheeks. “It’s queen, Dad, not princess, and there are four other girls who are a lot more …” Popular. I couldn’t get the word to leave my mouth. “I’m not going to be queen.”

“But you’re a candidate, so statistically, it’s possible.”

Statistically? Yes. In real life? Come. On.

But Dad looked so happy. I didn’t want to ruin his mood. I went back to the eggs, which were starting to stick to the pan.

Dad leaned against the counter next to the stove. “You know, when you were really little, I used to walk you down to Rhino’s to watch the parade. Remember that, Camy? You loved the girls in their long dresses and those little—” He made a motion like he was placing a crown on his head.

“Tiaras.”

“Oh, and your mom.” He shook his head and smiled. “I got in trouble for doing that every single year. You know how she feels about all that stuff. She’d go on and on about gender expectations and exploitation and … she’ll probably blame me for this too.” But he didn’t sound all that upset about it. In fact, he almost looked like he couldn’t wait to tell her.

I concentrated on getting the eggs and Spam onto plates. I didn’t want to think about Mom’s reaction. Maybe Dad really should be the one to tell her. If I couldn’t make that happen, email might be the best plan. Or maybe I’d pull a Mercedes and message her on f*******:. I could say something like:

Oh hai, mom. In h-coming ct. Kthnxbye.

“We’ll worry about your mom later,” Dad said, as if he’d just read my mind. “I’ll help you get your campaign canisters together. We should use that picture of you in that paper crown when you were … what? Six? Seven?” He looked like he was far away for a minute, like he was watching some old movie in his head. I had to reel him back in.

“Dad. Don’t go all crazy about this thing. Besides, I’m pretty sure the rules say parents aren’t allowed to help.”

Actually, I was exactly sure of that. I’d already read through Ms. Pendergast’s handout three times. I was also sure that most candidates didn’t follow any of those rules, but I wasn’t telling my dad that. Besides, maybe I was wrong. Maybe last year’s winner really had paid for that enormous campaign ad in the Olympia Times all by herself. And maybe that anonymous thousand-dollar “vote” came from a random citizen of our town too.

It could happen.

I guess.

We weren’t poor, but we didn’t have that kind of money to throw around, either. No way was I winning this thing. No way would I even come close. The most I could hope for was that Dad’s friends at work, and my grandparents, and maybe some of my neighbors would put a few pennies in a can so I wouldn’t be flat-out disgraced.

Now I was the one who was far away. I was trapped so deep inside my own lack of expectations that I didn’t hear Dad when he started to say, “… must be a ceremony or something? I’ll take off work and—”

“You would?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. Of course he would take off work to see me in the coronation ceremony. He’d gone to every single football game I’d ever played in. But once my time in sports was over? Well, getting your name on the honor roll isn’t exactly a spectator event.

But the homecoming ceremony—he could go to that. I could see it: Dad, with his geeked-out digital camera, taking about a thousand pictures. It was pretty mortifying to imagine. It was also kind of cool.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

I handed him a plate of eggs and Spam. Then I focused on buttering the toast so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “Just don’t be disappointed when they don’t crown me queen, okay?”

He put his plate on the table, then took the butter knife from my hand and set it on the counter. “Right here,” he said. He held my hand in his and tapped the spot over his heart. “In there you’ve always been queen.”