Into the Wild Nerd Yonder (11 page)

When I arrive home, a little sweaty but stress-free, I find Doc Mom in the kitchen rolling matzo balls between her palms and dropping them into a giant pot on the stove. The air smells chickeny.

“It’s a tad warm out for soup, isn’t it? You usually don’t get matzo ball cravings until at least after Halloween.”

“My throat’s a little sore. I think I’m getting a cold. Damn kids. If they’re sick, their parents should keep them home.”

Mom definitely sounds like she’s getting something; she’s not usually this cranky about her students. “Do you want some help?” I ask. I love rolling mushy food between my hands. Cookie dough is my number one favorite (particularly when it has chocolate chips, which act like little hand-massagers), but the sticky goo of the matzo balls is pretty nice, too.

“If you wouldn’t mind rolling the rest of the balls and dropping them in the broth, I’ll make some tea.” Mom unties
her flowery, frilly apron and passes it to me. I’m careful not to catch my hair as I tie the strings behind my neck. Patting a small lump of matzo meal out of the bowl, I roll it into a perfect circle before I toss it into the pot. A tiny splash of chicken broth sprinkles onto the stove.

“Careful, honey, try to not make it splash.” Mom sits down at the kitchen table and waits for the tea to whistle. “How was your day?” she asks, and I wonder how many times that gets asked around the world every day.

“Fine,” I answer, as expected.

“We didn’t get to talk about Van’s party on Sunday. Barrett told me he quit the band, which I can’t say I’m sorry about. I’ll finally get to fall asleep at a decent hour on a Friday night.” Mom laughs uncomfortably, and I know she’s going to bring up something I don’t want to talk about. “I couldn’t exactly ignore all of those unanswered phone calls yesterday. Was it Bizza?”

My mom has known Bizza since pre-every phase she’s been through, and she’s definitely seen both her good and bad sides. Good: How Bizza used to travel with our family every summer to Bane’s Lake and would humor my mom with a mind-numbing game of Boggle while I attacked the water slides. Bad: How Bizza lied to my mom about “borrowing” my mom’s only pair of Manolo Blahniks (which she won in a bidding war on eBay) and somehow managed to break off one of the heels before randomly tossing them back in my mom’s closet (wouldn’t you at least try to make it look like nobody
moved them?). My mom accused me forever, and I finally gave in and told her I did it just so she wouldn’t be mad at Bizza. What sucked about the whole thing was that my mom knew Bizza did it (they
always
know), so I was doubly bad in her eyes for a) lying and b) covering for a friend who would do something like that to me. Mom seemed to be forgiving because Bizza has continued to be invited on family trips, as well as holidays and other “family only” events. Part of me wishes my mom would have been so disgusted by Bizza’s behavior that she would have forbidden me from seeing her ever again. Preferably before the onset of puberty, so I could have avoided any and all Bizza skank adventures.

“Bizza is no longer my friend,” I declare, and I toss a matzo ball a little too violently into the pot. A giant plop of chicken soup lands on my arm. “Ow!” I yell, wiping it away.

“Careful,” Mom says momily. “How long will
this
fight last?” She’s seen countless fights between me and Bizza, lasting from one hour to three weeks. The worst (so far) came after Bizza stayed with my family for two weeks in eighth grade while her parents took an anniversary cruise through “The Islands.” I don’t remember what the fight was about, but it might have just been exposure overload. It ended in English class when Mr. Rowley automatically paired us up for a Shakespearian parody project, and Bizza kissed my ass until we made up and I agreed to write the whole project myself (she wanted an A).

“Forever,” I answer.

“Wow. That long? What’s she done now?”

I love how my mom automatically sides with me. Partially it’s because she knows Bizza all too well, and partially because, well, she’s my mom. “More like
who’d
she do.” I chuckle at my wordplay until I see the panicked look on my mom’s face. “Just kidding, Mom.” Moms don’t have to know everything. “Remember how I kind of had a crush on Van?” Mom sighs and nods. “Well, Bizza kind of, you know, hooked up with him.” I sag at the reminder of betrayal. What a crappy thing for a friend to do.

“Oh, honey.” Mom stands up and puts her arms around me. “I’m sorry. But don’t worry, there are plenty of Vans on the road.”

“Mom!” I can feel her smiling into my shoulder. Then she starts laughing.

“I couldn’t resist.”

“How long have you been saving that one?” I laugh with her, happy to lighten the mood and avoid more matzo ball burns.

“Too long,” Mom answers. The teakettle whistles, and Mom pours herself a cup of chamomile tea (the Peter Rabbit cure-all). “Oh, Bizza,” Mom says to the air. “Why couldn’t you be a better friend to my baby?”

“Your baby?”

“You and Barrett are my babies, and you’re both growing up so fast. Barrett will go off to college next year, then you’ll be gone in two years. Where does the time go?”

Ah, the Where Does the Time Go speech. Mom brings
this one out whenever she’s feeling sentimental, like last summer when Barrett visited colleges. We always have to pat her on the back and assure her that we’ll always love her and take care of her and when it’s time, be sure to put her in a clean but not too expensive rest home that doesn’t force her to eat tapioca.

“Jessie, I just want you to know that there are a lot of really great people out there. You may not meet them in high school, but you’ll find them. And hopefully they won’t be as concerned with how cool they are more than how much they like to be around you. Because you really are a wonderful person, Jessica.” Mom goes on for a while about how special I am and how lucky she is to have a daughter like me. The usual. I do think a little about one thing she says: “Hopefully they won’t be concerned with how cool they are.” I don’t think I’m going to have to worry about that on Friday night with Dottie and the dweebs.

I interrupt Mom’s motivational speech (not out of rudeness, of course, but to give her tired throat a break. Yeah.) to ask her, “Mom, if I decide I need to sew some elaborate costumes, would you be able to help me?”

“That’s a rather random question, but I’d be happy to help you. As long as it’s not a stay-up-all-night last-minute project. I swore I’d never let you do that to me again.” Mom refers to too many Halloweens past where I decided the night before trick-or-treating that being a princess/ballerina/Dora the
Explorer wasn’t cool enough, and I’d much rather be a ghost/firefighter/ninja or whatever else Barrett was that year.

“No last-minute work. I promise. If I even do it.” I don’t know why, but I can’t get myself to tell my mom about Dungeons and Dragons on Friday. I’m afraid she might laugh or tell me that only weirdos play D&D and try to talk me out of it.

I finish the last of the matzo balls and head to the sink to wash the goo off my hands. Mom slurps her tea and waves me out of the kitchen so she can finish up dinner. Before I head to my room to listen to my audiobook, I pick up several volumes from the World Book Encyclopedia in our living room. The set was my mom’s from when she was a teenager, and we took it from my grandma’s house after she moved into an assisted-living home last year. The set is white leather (or is it faux?) with gold writing on the covers. The date on the side glows “1975,” which is why the encyclopedias are practically covered with dust. With lots of the information completely outdated (or just too groovy), Barrett and I never touch the books. I thought I might find some good pictures, though, in the sections on medieval England, knights, costumes, and royalty for the costumes I might sew. I laugh as I flip through the pages and remember the TP stuffing in Dottie’s chest. Then the curly-haired guy pops into my head for an instant, before I shake him away and bring the heavy volumes to my room. I catch myself unintentionally smiling in my mirror.

MY ALARM ANNOYINGLY BUSTS ME awake from a glorious dream. The obnoxious rambling of the morning DJs wipe away any clear picture of who or what it was about, but I have that naughty feeling where I’m thankful I’m not a guy or I’d be changing the sheets right now. I roll around to stretch a little, wishing it was Sunday so I could go back to sleep and have my unruly subconscious continue where it left off. But if I don’t hit the bathroom now, Barrett will hog it with his midweek head shaving, and I’ll have to brush my teeth with his tiny hairs in the sink (the combo of spitty toothpaste and hair grosses me out).

Today is Wednesday, hump day, and I have managed just the one run-in with Bizza yesterday. She looked horrid, so maybe Van dumped her, if they were ever actually going out. Why do I care?

Before first period, I stuff books into my locker and sense someone hovering behind me. Part of me hopes it’s one of my new nerdish friends, while the tiniest part of me hopes it’s Van (I think my brain has some chemical addiction to him because
my heart has very little interest). It ends up being Char, who I haven’t seen or spoken to since the party. Her loyalty is obviously with Queen Bizza, but I feel a squeeze of happiness to see her. She’s not smiling, though.

“Hey, Jess, how ya been?” she asks. Is she referring to how I’ve been since The Incident, or how I’ve been doing at school, or with my skirts, or with my complete and total transfer of social groups?

“Pretty good,” I try to answer in as neutral a way as possible, not overly stoked to be talking to her, not flaming angry, just
chill
.

“Have you seen Bizza?”

Why is that always Char’s question of choice? I flash back to when she asked me that on the first day of school and I saw Bizza’s new head. “Why? What does her hair look like now? Is she totally bald? A faux hawk? Ooh—maybe extensions?”

Char interrupts my snarkiness. “No, I mean, I haven’t seen her since yesterday at lunch. She and Van had this huge blowout in his car.” I look disgusted. “I don’t mean
that
kind of blowout. I mean like a fight. She was crying really hard when she got out of the car, and then she just disappeared for the rest of the day. I tried to ask Van what was the what, but he just asked me what I was doing later.” She looks all annoyed, but my stomach churns at the thought. At least she didn’t hook up with him, too.

“Haven’t seen her,” I tell her, and add coldness to my
voice to see if Char notices, but she just chews the inside of her mouth nervously. Feeling guilty, I add, “Did you try calling her at home?”

“Not today. Last night she didn’t answer her cell or her home.” Don’t get me started on why Bizza needs a cell phone and a private home phone line. Probably to keep up with her prostitution business. Ouch. Did I just think that? “I’m gonna go and see if I can get in touch with her. See ya.”

As I walk to first period, I’m kind of bunged that Char is so concerned with Bizza and doesn’t seem too concerned about me. She once told me that it only
seems
like she sides with Bizza more when we fight, but really it’s just because Bizza is such a drama sucker that if she doesn’t make Bizza get over herself, we’d never make up. And Char hates when we fight. But how does that apply here? I think it’s more like Char finally had to choose a side, and she’s gone with the more socially active option. My Char analysis has me spacing out, and I accidentally crash into someone with a resulting shower of textbooks. “Dang! Sorry.” I scramble to separate my books from my collider’s, when I look up to see the curly-haired guy from Dottie’s Rena-crew. My brain sparks, and I realize
he
was the guy I was dreaming about this morning that got me all hot and bothered. Flustered, I concentrate on the stacking of books.

“Hey, you’re Jessie, right?” His voice is low and kind, and I wonder if that’s how he sounded in my dream. It’s not like I’ve ever really heard him talk before. What was he doing in
my dream in the first place? “Right?” he asks again, and looks at me with intense, Flavor-Ice blue eyes.

“Uh, right.” I just want to grab my books and go, but seeing as I dreamt about him, I should at least get his name. “And you are . . .” I hope it’s not obnoxious that he knows my name but I don’t know his.

“Henry.” He rests his books on his crouched knee and extends a hand for me to shake. “Henry Hathaway.” I grip his hand, and he gives me a friendly handshake, not too wussy but not all business-suit painful. A spray of curls falls over his eyes, and I’m almost grateful when the bell rings.

We both scramble to get our books and stand up, myself way too quickly. “Whoa.” The blood rushes to my head, and I grab on to the closest thing to steady myself: Henry’s chest. He balances my bobbling books on top of his stack while I compose myself (and notice the unexpected solidness under his baggy red T-shirt. Weird).

“Thanks.” I regain my balance and my books.

“So I’ll see you at D&D on Friday? It’s at my house. Dottie can give you directions.” If there was ever a way to excuse myself from a Friday night nerdfest, it’s gone now. They all know I’m invited. And it’s at Henry’s house. The surprise subject of my I-wish-I-could-sleep-forever dream. Or maybe that’s a reason I
should
excuse myself. What if he used some medieval magic to engrain himself in my subconscious?

I watch Henry walk away from me down the hall. His pants are a little too short, like he hasn’t bought new ones since
his most recent growth spurt, and he has on white leather gym shoes, the kind that I would only be caught dead in if I were on a far-off family vacation where I was guaranteed not to see anyone I know or anyone I would want to know. I must be in the Twilight Zone because I think maybe, possibly, somehow I might be crushing on a nerd.

I WAS AFRAID THAT DOTTIE WOULD see. She has that freakish ability to know what I’m thinking about, and if she figured out that I was thinking about one of her crew, she might take it to mean more than it does. Which is nothing, because I don’t even have a choice in the matter; my subconscious started this whatever-it-is. But according to Freud, your subconscious is your
true
, hidden feelings. So what does
that
mean?