Geek Abroad (28 page)

But I didn’t need a minute. I was ready. A lifetime of math prowess—a skill I’d never fully appreciated until now—had prepared me for this moment.

I leaned forward and spoke directly into the microphone. “The answer is sixty-nine-point-three seconds,”I said, my heart pounding wildly.

The auditorium was eerily quiet. No one coughed or shuffled their feet. Everyone was still and silent, waiting to hear what the outcome would be.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new Mu Alpha Theta state champion: The Notting Hill Independent School of Orange Cove!”the moderator announced.

“Yes!”Leila cheered, thrusting one triumphant fist up in the air.

“We did it!”Kyle yelled.

Suddenly, we were all jumping up out of our seats and crushing together into a big group hug.

“I can’t believe we won and my dad wasn’t here to see it,”Sanjiv said from the middle of the huddle.

“He will,”I said, laughing. “Unless my dad dropped the camcorder in the excitement!”

Chapter 23

Dad took Charlie, Sadie, and me out for a victory dinner of cheeseburgers and chocolate shakes at the Orange Cove Grill. As an added bonus, Dad and Sadie managed to get through the whole meal without bickering. After dinner, I asked Sadie if she’d mind if I went out on her first night home.

“No, you go ahead, darling. I’m still on London time. I’m going to fall into bed as soon as I get home,”Sadie assured me.

Dad dropped Sadie off first—“My bougainvillea bush is so overgrown,”she cried out when he pulled into her driveway—and then took Charlie and me to Orange Cove High.

“Call me when you’re ready to be picked up,”Dad said.

“Okay. Thanks, Dad,”I said, as I climbed out of his SUV.

“Congratulations again!”he said. I closed the door and waved good-bye to him.

“You still haven’t told me exactly why we’re going to an Orange Cove High lacrosse game,”Charlie said, as we followed the crowd toward the outdoor fields at the back of the school. I didn’t see anyone I knew among the Orange Cove High students and their parents, all wearing orange shirts or carrying orange pom-poms. Even so, I suddenly felt caught up in the spirit of the event.

This is what it must be like going to a normal high school,
I thought.
Attending team sporting events and feeling school pride.

Then again, after a day like today, I wasn’t exactly a stranger to school pride.

“It’s good to take an interest in new things, don’t you think?”I said.

Charlie snorted. “Okay, so don’t tell me,”she said.

The thing was, I wasn’t sure what to tell her. We’d just made up from our fight over her neglecting our friendship so she could spend all of her time with her boyfriend, and now I was dragging her to Dex’s lacrosse game.

We sat down on the wooden bleachers, squeezing in between a pair of camcorder-wielding dads and a group of giggling freshman girls, all of whom were wearing matching orange headbands. There was a good-sized crowd; clearly lacrosse was a popular spectator sport at the high school. It was just dusk, still light enough to see, but they’d already turned on the huge overhead lights that towered over the field, and the massive scoreboard at one end was lit up. The crowd suddenly let out a wild cheer as the two lacrosse teams came running out on the field and began their warm-ups on opposite ends of the field, flipping their sticks to pass the tiny balls back and forth in a series of complicated maneuvers. Even though he was wearing a helmet, I spotted Dex immediately and my heart gave an excited lurch.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

“Look, isn’t that Dex McConnell?”one of the freshman girls squealed.

“He’s
so
yummy,”one of her friends groaned. “I’d give anything to go out with him.”

Charlie overheard their conversation, too. “Oh ho,”she said, a sly smile spreading on her face as she turned to look at me. I blushed. “I think I just figured out your sudden interest in the sport.”

“He invited me to watch one of his games,”I explained. “Do you mind?”

Charlie shook her head. “Of course not,”she said. “Going to a high school athletic event is an interesting anthropological experience. Not one I think I’d care to repeat all that often, but still educational. Maybe it’ll even inspire a painting.”

“You’re painting again?”I asked.

“Mm-hmm,”Charlie said. “I’m trying to get enough works together to do that gallery show down in Miami.”She made a face. “I’ve been sort of slacking off lately.”

“You’ll catch up,”I said supportively.

“Well, I’ll have plenty of time to now,”Charlie said. She let out a short, humorless bark of laughter. “Now that Mitch and I have broken up.”

“About that . . . are you okay?”I turned to look at her. Charlie’s face was pale, but her expression was serene.

She gave a tiny shrug. “Yeah, I’m okay. It happened a week ago. I’ve had some time to get used to it.”

“What happened?”I asked.

Charlie drew in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “Actually, it started back on your birthday. I knew that you were upset with me, and for good reason—it was like I could actually look down from above and see how I was so wrapped up in Mitch that I was ignoring you. I didn’t like myself for that. But I also couldn’t seem to stop. It was almost like an . . . well, this sounds stupid, but it was like an irresistible compulsion,”she said.

I nodded but didn’t say anything.

“So there was that, this feeling that I was out of control and just getting swept along. Then Mitch started pushing me, to, well . . .”Her voice trailed off, and she actually blushed, which I don’t think I’d ever seen Charlie do before.

“To what?”I asked softly.

She looked at me, her eyes dark and fathomless. “You know . . .”she said in a lowered voice. Then she glanced around to see if anyone had heard what she’d said. But the game had just started, and the crowd was cheering and loudly stamping their feet on the bleachers. No one was paying any attention to us.

“So . . .”I hesitated, not sure I wanted to ask, but feeling like I had to for the sake of our friendship. “Did you?”

Charlie shook her head. “No.”She shrugged again. “I wasn’t ready. And he wouldn’t let it drop, so last week I told him that if he wouldn’t back off, then I didn’t want to see him anymore. And that was pretty much that. Well. Except for the part where he’s been calling me ten times a day asking me to get back together with him, and e-mailing me play lists of sappy music.”She rolled her eyes, but I could tell that this was an act. She was clearly still really torn up about it.

“Are you going to get back together with him?”I asked.

“I don’t know,”Charlie said simply. “I guess I miss him. But I don’t miss the intensity of it all. I want to do the right thing. . . . I just don’t know what that is.”

“You’ll figure it out,”I said, nudging her with my shoulder. “We’ll figure it out together.”

Charlie smiled. “Thanks, Miranda. That means a lot to me.”

“Now . . . what about Finn?”

“What about him?”Charlie asked innocently. I looked at her, and she sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s time he and I made up, too. I’ll go see him tomorrow, okay?”

“Good,”I said, feeling happier than I had in a long time.

Charlie suddenly nodded her chin toward the game. “Look! I think Dex just made a goal! Or a point, or whatever.”

“Really?”I craned my head, trying to see. “Oh, no, I missed it!”I clapped along with the crowds. “This is really kind of exciting, huh?”

Charlie laughed and clapped too. “Yeah, I guess it sort of is,”she said.

Orange Cove High won the game by a score of eleven to ten. Dex scored the winning shot, a thrilling maneuver where he jumped up from behind the goal and flipped the ball in with a kind of hook shot, much to the delight of the crowd, who cheered him like a newly coronated king. Somehow, Charlie and I had really gotten into the game, and so at this final goal, we joined the rest of the crowd by leaping to our feet, hugging each other, and then applauding wildly.

“Why am I so happy?”Charlie yelled into my ear. “I don’t even like this stupid game. I don’t like any sports games.”

“I don’t know,”I yelled back. “But Dex was pretty amazing, wasn’t he?”

Fans were flooding onto the field, still cheering and slapping the players on the back in congratulations.

“Are you going to go talk to Dex?”Charlie asked.

I suddenly felt shy. “I don’t know,”I said, watching him down on the field being hugged by a tall dark-haired man and a pretty woman with curly red hair. “I think he’s with his parents.”

“So? You have to talk to him. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”Charlie asked, nudging me.

“Don’t push,”I said.

“Will if I want to,”Charlie said, and she nudged me again. “Come on, Miranda, he invited you to come. He’ll be happy to see you.”

“What if he isn’t? I don’t think he invited me because he liked me,”I said. “I think he was just being polite.”

“You are so naive,”Charlie said with an exasperated sigh.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Guys do not ask girls that they don’t like to come watch them in sporting events.”

“They might if they’re friends,”I said.

“But you and Dex are not friends,”Charlie said.

“We’re
friendly
. We ran into one another on the beach. That’s when he asked me to come to his game.”

Charlie snorted in disbelief.

“What?”I asked.

“
Miranda
. You did not accidentally bump into him on the beach. He was
waiting
there for you. He knew that’s when you always walk Willow.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes. I really think so. What would you be risking?”

“Total humiliation. Public rejection.”

“You’re being ridiculous. Stop procrastinating, and go talk to him,”Charlie said.

I took in a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “Okay. Here goes nothing,”I said.

My heart was fluttering and my stomach was squirming with nerves as I left Charlie behind at the bleachers and made my way down toward the field. The crowd had thinned out by now, so I didn’t have to push my way through to get to Dex. In fact, it took a disturbingly short amount of time to reach the edge of the field where Dex was standing, still chatting with his parents. I walked up behind him, hesitating for a moment. They looked like a nice family. His parents had kind faces, and seemed really proud of Dex. His mom kept reaching out to touch his arm or brush a lock of hair off his face. His dad saw me standing there, waiting, and he smiled at me. Dex glanced back to see who his dad was looking at. Our eyes met, and I felt my heart give a violent lurch.

“Miranda, hey,”Dex said, his pale blue eyes holding my gaze. His face was flushed and he was still sweating. “You came.”

“You were
amazing
,”I said honestly.

“Thanks,”he said. “Wait! How did your math competition go today?”

“You knew about that?”I asked.

He nodded. “Hannah told me. I wanted to come watch, but coach scheduled a practice this afternoon.”

“It went really well. We won,”I said.

His eyes brightened, and his smile grew even wider. “Wow, that’s great. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,”I said, trying not to blush and failing miserably. I glanced at his parents. They were both tall and athletic-looking. His dad had a cleft chin and thick dark hair, and his mother had bright green eyes and a wide smile. I could instantly see that Dex had gotten his pale blue eyes from his father, but had inherited his mother’s pale skin and red hair.

“Mom, Dad, this is Miranda,”Dex said.

“Hello, Miranda. It’s nice to meet you,”Mrs. McConnell said.

“Hello,”Mr. McConnell said.

“Hi,”I said, giving a little wave.

“Do you have a ride, or do you want us to wait?”Mr. McConnell asked Dex.

“I have a ride. I’ll catch up with you back at home,”Dex said.

His parents said good-bye and left. Dex and I just stood there for a moment, not saying anything.

“Hey, do you want to . . .”Dex finally began, at the same moment that I’d said, “So, my friend, Charlie, is waiting . . .”

Then we both stopped suddenly, and waited for the other to speak.

“Go ahead,”Dex said.

“No, you,”I said, really, really hoping that he would, because I’d gotten the definite feeling that he was about to ask me out.

“Ladies first,”Dex insisted.

“I was just saying that my friend Charlie is waiting for me up by the bleachers,”I said, pointing back to where Charlie was sitting, her purple hair vivid under the lights. She waved at us, and Dex waved back at her.

“I have to get going anyway,”Dex said. “The coach likes to do a postgame review in the locker room. Plus, I really need a shower.”

He wasn’t asking me out after all. I looked down and kicked at a divot in the grass. I hoped my disappointment wasn’t too obvious.

“Okay. Well . . . congratulations again,”I said.

“Wait! What are you doing tomorrow?”Dex asked.

I looked up. “Tomorrow? Nothing!”I said quickly.